


Butterflies & Hurricanes

by FrancescaMonterone



Series: I love you, and magic is real [2]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Magic, Asexual Character, Bisexual Character, Dogs, F/F, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Selkies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2018-08-18 17:18:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8169731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrancescaMonterone/pseuds/FrancescaMonterone
Summary: "The world is falling apart, and there's an evil witch trying to kill me."  - Roxy may have found Percival and managed to get into Kingsman, and having magic is nice, but right now, there are more pressing concerns. Namely: mass-murdering megalomaniacs and their sidekicks.Merlin, Eggsy, and the knights struggle with the loss of Harry Hart and the aftermath of Arthur's betrayal, Percival and Tristan chase a necromancer, and Harry finds that being a ghost sucksSequel to "The Space Between Two Breaths"





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back! As promised, here is a sequel to "The Space Between Two Breaths". Apparently, I wasn't finished telling Roxy's story.
> 
> The Title is an homage to one of my favorite songs, "Butterflies and Hurricanes" by Muse

 

Roxy's final day as a _Kingsman_ recruit didn't dawn gently on her. It arrived suddenly, jerking her from one state of being into another. One moment, she was asleep, and the next...

"Ouch," Roxy said, her face all of a sudden only inches from the hardwood floor that had just slammed into her with merciless force. _Of course_ Alistair wouldn't have thought to choose a carpet to go with his living room décor, something understated and possibly beige, but _soft_.

The breath that had been taken from her returned gradually, and she began to feel various parts of her body ache. There would be bruises tomorrow. She could already feel them forming.

"I take each and every question I ever asked about you being single back," she groaned as she sat up. "This. _This_ Alistair. You don't throw a girl off the couch... or a guy, for that matter."

Alistair, still half tangled in a voluminous woolen blanket, blinked at her owlishly. He did not seem awake enough to fully grasp what she had said, or why she was here in the first place. His dark hair stuck out wildly in more directions that should have been physically possible, and the fact that he was short-sighted without his glasses gave him a somewhat lost and confused air. He looked positively adorable.

Roxy groaned. Nope, definitely not going there. Mind, get back here this instant! You do _not_ get to go down that road, because this is _Alistair_ , for God's sake.

She reached out to the low glass table and handed his glasses to him. Alistair accepted them gracefully and immediately looked somewhat more awake wearing them.

He also turned oddly pale.

"Uh... Alistair?"

He stared at her, dark eyes wild. "Oh my God...! You're here! Why are you here...?"

Roxy frowned. "Because you invited me? We had dinner last night. And apparently fell asleep halfway through _Goldfinger_? Or was it _Moonraker_?"

Alistair took a deep breath. Roxy tried not to focus on the fact that his shirt was half unbuttoned, or to draw any attention to it. He seemed upset enough as it was. "Only that...?" he asked in a low voice, looking away from her.

"Yes. What did _you_ think?"

Silly, silly question. Because it was obvious, wasn't it?

She had to somehow reassure him, because he was apparently freaked out by the idea. That... stung a bit. But she supposed it made perfect sense from where Alistair stood. He had seen her in diapers, after all, and in all other embarrassing stages of childhood. The only thing he'd missed was puberty, and thank God for small mercies.

"Alistair, you and I could _never_ get drunk enough to accidentally have sex."

Too much? But the words were out now.

She dared to look up. He seemed... relieved.

Oh. Well. Good, then.

"I'm sorry," he said, and Roxy giggled despite herself, because _this_. This entire thing was just too absurd not to be funny.

"For assuming that I would try and take advantage of you, or for throwing me off the couch?"

"Both, I guess." He shook his head. "Sorry. I'm not a morning person, and I'm definitely not used to having anyone else around when I wake up."

"That much is clear. It's also a bit sad." She squared her shoulders. "Breakfast?"

"Try not to set the kitchen on fire." The corners of his mouth twitched.

She stuck out her tongue at him, and that got her a laugh. Mission accomplished.

 

* * *

 

 

When Merlin put a gun into her hand and told her to shoot the black poodle she had named  _Bête,_ Roxy was not a happy bunny.

Still, she knew that it had to be done.

_"It's a blank," Alistair had assured her in the morning as they had left the house, "she will not be harmed."_

So, rationally she knew that the poodle would be fine. And yet... lifting the gun still felt terrible. Not because she suspected foul play, though she wouldn't have put it past Merlin. He probably knew or suspected that Alistair had told her about the dog test.

The ultimate test of loyalty.

_"Shoot the dog."_

No, Roxy's anxiety did not stem from her fear that she might hurt _Bête._ It came from the knowledge that she would have shot the dog in any case, blank or not.

No dog could ever be as precious to her as Alistair, and the only way to stay with him permanently was to get into _Kingsman_. To get into _Kingsman_ , you had to shoot the dog. Simple as that.

Her hand trembled slightly.

_Alistair, I hope you aren't watching this._

She closed her eyes. Opened them again. And let go of the trigger.

 _Bête_ gave a surprised yelp and jumped up. The gun tumbled out of Roxy's grip, as the dog turned to look at her, startled by the sudden commotion.

And Merlin was smiling.

"Well done, my dear."

Roxy looked up at him. "You knew, didn't you?"

He shrugged. "Does it matter?"

"Uh, yes...? Because I just cheated my way through the final test."

"No, you didn't," Merlin said. "Remember, this test is about loyalty. It's supposed to be about your loyalty to _Kingsman_ , but we both know why you are really here. If I had wanted to test your loyalty to _Kingsman_ , I would have told you to shoot Alistair."

"But..." She frowned. Wasn't this all wrong? He was supposed to care about her being loyal to _Kingsman_.

Merlin gave a soft sigh as he picked up the gun. "Look, _Kingsman_ is more than the shop, and the suits and the running around and saving the world. It's possible to be loyal to an institution itself, but there's no warmth in it, no passion. But what is _Kingsman_ if not the people that embody it? You are unfailingly loyal to Alistair, you kept searching for years even after he abandoned you, and you never gave up on him. You are loyal to Tristan and Bedivere, because they are your friends, and to the boy in the next room, who sadly won't be your brother-in-arms, because I doubt he has the guts to shoot his dog, and because Harry may not have the integrity not to sleep with his recruits, but he does know how to keep a secret." His looked at her, his expression oddly amused. "I do hope that in time, you will also grow loyal to me. It takes some work, I know, but I'm really not all that bad when I'm not telling people that they are falling to their deaths without a parachute, or to shoot their dogs."

"There's a reason you are here with me, and Arthur is in the other room with Eggsy," Roxy stated. It was not a question, not anymore.

"I like Eggsy," Merlin said, "he's a good lad, very bright and resourceful. He would have made a good knight. But you are better."

 _Bête_ , who had apparently recovered from the shock of being shot at, came up to Roxy and leaned against her side. Absentmindedly, Roxy began to pet her. The soft dog fur felt strangely reassuring beneath her fingers.

"And Eggsy has no magic," she said, because it did come down to that,

"There's that," Merlin admitted. "Magic is rare, in this day and age. It is terribly difficult to find a wizard, more so one who is fully human. Of the last four people I recruited, who have any magic to speak of, only Alistair is nothing but human. Bedivere was a lucky accident, and his abilities are fascinating, but very narrow. There is something to be said for being able to turn into a seal, but it's only helpful in very specific circumstances."

An idea dawned on Roxy. "You are looking for your own successor, aren't you? And you want me to help find him."

Merlin's expression turned into a puzzled frown. "Looking for my successor?" he asked. "No. What do you think I've been doing these past ten years with Tristan, if not training him?"

Roxy gaped at him. She remembered - distinctly! - Tristan telling her that Merlin did not think him good enough to be his successor. Tristan was quite bitter about that, it seemed, although he took pains not to let it show. (Of course, Roxy had by now also heard enough about Tristan's apparent crush on Merlin, to suspect that it played into his frustration as well.)

"What?" Merlin asked, his frown deepening.

"He _doesn't know_."

"Yes," Merlin said breezily, "and I'd like to be the one who tells him, so would you please keep your mouth shut about the entire matter?"

Roxy shook her head. "Honestly, Merlin. You have a fucked-up relationship with Tristan." Because apart from the sexual attraction - which Roxy suspected was not _completely_ one-sided - Tristan and Merlin were apparently locked in an unhealthy mentor-student relationship where Tristan thought he could never be good enough to satisfy Merlin and tried nevertheless, and Merlin goaded him on, sniping and discouraging, all under the impression that he was doing Tristan and everyone else a favor by bringing out the best in him, all stick and no carrot.

Merlin's eyes narrowed. "None of your business."

Probably not, no.

Roxy sighed.

 

* * *

 

 

Arthur congratulated her, welcoming her into _Kingsman_ , and almost managed to be charming about it.

Well. Almost.

Roxy gave him a small smile and a too-serious look of gratitude, and realized that without ever thinking about it, she had adopted Tristan's and Irvin's unspoken but evident dislike of the man. And now that she did think about it, Arthur appeared to be a lot less respected or liked than he considered himself to be. Alistair was guarded about it, but she had noted that he kept his interactions with Arthur restricted to the bare minimum of polite propriety. It was difficult to gauge Merlin's feelings on the matter, but Roxy had formed the impression that Merlin wasn't particularly fond of living things in general, and that included Arthur.

She thought briefly of Eggsy when she left the room, black poodle at her heels.

No doubt he felt bad for having let Harry Hart down. But maybe it was for the better. From what little she had observed, Roxy doubted that Harry cared as much as Eggsy did, or that he understood the depth of Eggsy's devotion to him. Maybe Eggsy was better served by using his new-found skills to get back into the armed forces, or even the police, and by having a respectable career, meeting and marrying a nice girl, and raising a child or two.

She would have to look him up stealthily once they gave her a moment to breathe, and meet him for coffee or a pint. Surely Merlin could not fault her for having friends. (Well... he probably could. But Roxy didn't give a damn.)

Alistair fell into step beside her when she crossed the hallway that led to the conference room with the round table (it wasn't actually round, but Roxy preferred to think of it as such).

"Did you get into a fight with Merlin?"

"Uh, Alistair, how about _'congratulations, you made it, I am so proud of you'_?" she chided, but she couldn't fully suppress her smile.

Alistair stopped in his tracks. "I _am_ proud of you," he said seriously.

"Good to know. And yes, I _did_ fight with Merlin. But only a bit. How did you know?"

"It seemed like the thing you would do, now that you have secured your place within _Kingsman_. Merlin does tend to rub people the wrong way, at first."

"He certainly does," Roxy agreed, "but he's brilliant. I suppose that's why I'll ultimately forgive him for being an arse and treating people the way he does."

Alistair smiled. "Don't worry about us. Over time, we have all found our little ways to get back at him every once in a while. Harry is a master of it, unsurprisingly. And he does care. Merlin, I mean. He is just exceptionally good at pretending he doesn't."

His smile broadened. "Now, I do suppose a celebration is in order?"

Roxy grinned. "Sounds good."

"In that case, I'm taking you out to dinner. Shall we ask Tristan and Bedivere as well?"

"Absolutely." She took his arm.

 

* * *

 

 

In hindsight, she should have known better.

 _Dinner_ was warmth, and laughter, and too much good food. It turned into drinks at a club, where Irvin's lack of social grace led to him questioning the bartender's ability to make a proper martini, which almost led to a fight, and near-hysterical laughter on Tristan's part (not helpful). Roxy shoed them both away onto the dance floor and flirted with the bartender until he forgave the incident, which got her a couple of free drinks and a decidedly displeased look from Alistair.

"What?" she asked, brows raised. "You are not my father, and for the record, that was harmless."

Alistair scowled, looking almost pained, and took a somewhat too large gulp of martini that left him spluttering.

"Someone seems a little out of sorts," Tristan noted, before he whisked Roxy away to the dance floor.

"I'm not dancing with you," Roxy protested, even as she followed him.

"Yes, you are."

"Fine. But keep your hands to yourself."

"Roxanne." Tristan raised his eyebrows in mock astonishment. "As if. Besides, my better half is here. And Alistair already looks rattled enough. Do you think he's jealous? I think he's jealous."

Tristan spun her around, and Roxy felt a bit dizzy.

"Nonsense."

"You should ask him to dance with you. You know, so he doesn't feel left out." Tristan grinned at her, his  expression a bit too harmless to be completely innocent.

But against her better judgment, Roxy did ask Alistair to dance with her. And against _his_ better judgment, he accepted. She blamed it on the alcohol.

Later, in the cab on the way home, Irvin asked: "Was this a double-date? It felt like one."

"Ridiculous," Roxy said, pointedly ignoring the fact that she had her head on Alistair's shoulder, snuggling into his side. He really _did_ make a good pillow. So who could blame her?

 

* * *

 

 

The world descended into chaos on a mildly cloudy Sunday afternoon.

It was eerily quiet at the Manor, with nearly all the knights pursuing one mission or the other. Galahad was in Ohio, following a lead in his investigation on Richmond Valentine. Tristan and Bedivere were in France, Percival on a plane to Rio de Janeiro.

Roxy looked up from her screen with a sigh. Apparently, when Merlin said _'I need you to read up on a few things in preparation for your first mission'_  he meant dropping a multitude of dissertation-length documents in your inbox. He probably expected her to take notes, too. Maybe color-code them.

She was close to burying her face in her hands. Remind her again why she had thought joining _Kingsman_ sounded like a brilliant idea?

Oh right. Saving the world. Being a cool-hero spy. Alistair.

With another deep sigh, she went back to reading about nuclear non-proliferation efforts and various governments' official and unofficial positions on the subject.

Of all the possible distractions, learning about Harry Hart's death from the mouth of a seriously shaken Merlin (she had never seen him as upset before, and never would afterwards), followed by the realization that Eggsy - oh God, Eggsy, what must he have felt, hearing that Harry was _dead_? - had apparently just poisoned Arthur, was not the one she would have chosen.

In what seemed like a strange inversion of the dog test, it was Merlin who told her to lower the gun she was pointing at Eggsy, Merlin who called her by her codename and told her that Eggsy was no traitor, that the real traitor was Arthur, had been all along, right under their noses.

Eggsy looked pale, but determined, and Roxy was torn between wanting to hug him, and tearfully apologizing that she had thought him capable of betrayal. She did neither. Instead, it was Eggsy who apologized.

"I am so sorry," he said, clearly struggling with what he had done, with being capable of killing a man in cold blood, even one intent on poisoning him, "he... when I saw the scar, I _knew_. I knew that he was a traitor, I knew that he was in bed with the people who killed Harry, and that he was going to try and kill me too. Swapping the glasses was all I could think of, it happened so fast..."

"It's all right, lad," Merlin said, even though it clearly wasn't. "I would have welcomed the chance to question him, but we'll just have to do without. In any case, the result is certainly preferable to the alternative." There was a harsh edge to his voice, like broken glass. Roxy was willing to bet that Merlin was inwardly seething, furious at Arthur's betrayal, and blaming himself for not seeing the signs.

"I am going to need your help," Merlin continued.

"Anything you need," Roxy said.

"We don't have much time, and all the knights are currently on assignment, except for Dagonet, and we need him to man the shop. What's more, we have no way of knowing if Arthur hasn't corrupted some of them. I think we can safely exclude Tristan, he hates the man, and I have been working much too closely with him to not have noticed anything. Bedivere, by extension, because he would be incapable of hiding something of that magnitude from Tristan. Galahad, not that that'll help us now..."

"Percival," Roxy said firmly. "Alistair would _never_..."

Merlin nodded. "Right. I'm reasonably certain Dagonet and Gawain aren't in on it, and Kay's involvement seems unlikely, given that he has been undercover and virtually cut off from all of us for the past four months. I am not sure about the others."

"You could still try to get them out of harm's way," Eggsy suggested. "Recall them to headquarters. A plane is probably the safest place to be once Valentine's SIM cards turn people crazy." And, turning to Roxy, he added quickly: "It's the free SIM cards. They send out some sort of signal. That's how he got Harry..."

"Hold on," Roxy said, suddenly preoccupied with her own loved ones (well, loved one). "How long is the flight to Rio?"

"Eleven and a half hours," Merlin said. "He's about three hours in. Alistair will be safe, provided we stop this within the next eight and a half hours."

"Right," Roxy said, after exchanging a slightly panicked look with Eggsy, "let's go and take down a deranged megalomaniac, then. It's what we signed up for, isn't it?"

 

* * *

 

 

When she realized the full scope of what they were planning to do as the plane touched down and they found themselves confronted with a small army and honest to God anti-aircraft missiles, she almost regretted her words.

 

* * *

 

 

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Eggsy asked Merlin dubiously, eyeing the contraption that was supposed to take him high enough to disable a satellite. It did not inspire confidence. Roxy was secretly very glad that she was the one with magic, and therefore Merlin's choice for storming the castle. She wasn't sure if she could have dealt with ascending to the stratosphere in the awful knowledge that if she failed to take out the satellite, every effort the others made would be for nothing.

"Reasonably certain," Merlin said. "And we have no choice."

There was that.

Roxy squeezed Eggsy's hand. It was the only comfort she could offer him, but he took it graciously and gave her a shaky smile in return.

"And what will you be doing?"

"Um... pretending that Valentine's guards are butterflies, I suppose."

Eggsy frowned. "Butterflies?"

"Tristan taught me to freeze butterflies to sleep with my magic. To be fair, I ended up killing most of them and he forbid me to try it on humans, but in this instance, that hardly seems a pressing concern..."

"I hereby expressly grant you permission to use any means necessary  to stop Valentine," Merlin said drily. "Please _do_ freeze anything in your path."

"With pleasure," Roxy said, trying to sound more confident than she felt.

"Good. I'll deal with Valentine's bodyguard in the meantime. She's a witch. And a strong one at that. She also owes me the life of one of my knights." The expression on Merlin's face was intense, even feral.

 _So he does care, after all_ , Roxy thought, remembering what Alistair had told her.

"My predecessor?" She guessed.

Merlin nodded grimly. "James. He was a good man. She... sliced him in half."

"Ugh," Eggsy looked appalled.

"Don't worry about her," Merlin advised Roxy. "I will keep her out of your way. Concentrate on getting to Valentine. Take him out, then try to disable whatever equipment he has there to control his SIM cards."

"How?"

Merlin grinned in a most unpleasant way. "I've found that most technical equipment doesn't take kindly to being set on fire, deep-frozen or shot at. Freezing it will probably be easiest for you - it is an ice palace after all. You'll feel right at home."

"And you say you aren't prejudiced about the _fae_ ," Roxy muttered.

"I appreciate your unique abilities."

 

* * *

 

 

Roxy's _unique abilities_ plowed a path straight through Valentine's private army and to the man himself. Humans, it turned out, weren't so different from butterflies at all.

Since Tristan hadn't taught her how to use her magic at a distance - if that was even possible - she had to get up close and personal with the guards, which was fairly challenging. She ended up tackling quite a few of them by more conventional means, because shooting was often easier than sneaking up on them. The downside of the approach was that most of the people she shot were definitely dead, or sure to die, while those she froze had a chance of waking up again. She knew she had gone too far with a few of them, but most only slumped into a coma-like state, from which they would supposedly recover in time and/or if somebody made the effort to warm them up again.

Roxy was pretty sure that the science of that was skewed, because being partially-frozen could not be a good thing for a human body, but she had found that magic was often like that. Take Bedivere's shapeshifting, for example.

Speaking of which... "Hey, Merlin? Have you had any luck in contacting the others?"

Merlin _did_ sound a little breathless when he replied. It was good to know that he was only human, after all. "Tristan and Bedivere are on their way, but it is unlikely that they will arrive in time to provide backup. Kay is out of reach. Percival acknowledged the receipt of the warning I sent him."

Well, that was something, at least.

Unfortunately, Eggsy's heroic satellite-disabling went to waste when Valentine called up one of his buddies and got a replacement within minutes.

The upshot of this was that Merlin had to leave Roxy to deal with both Valentine (who made no threatening moves at present) and Gazelle (who seemed terribly determined to kill her and more than likely to succeed), while he headed back to the plane to short-circuit Valentine's system. It was a desperate, last minute endeavor. Gazelle moved freakishly fast - magic, Roxy realized - and with little respect for conventional physics. It took Roxy all of twenty seconds to realize that she wouldn't be able to dodge the other woman for long.

She needed to distract her, at least until Merlin came back to deal with her properly.

Up until then, Roxy had not really experimented with her magic, mostly because she knew somewhere deep down, at the border between her conscious and unconscious mind, that such experimentation could lead to dreadful things. With a capital D.

Desperate times, though...

She remembered Tristan saying: _"Magic comes from deep within you, and from all around you. It is instinct more than knowledge."_

Well, then. Roxy had some faith in her survival instinct.

When Gazelle came at her next, Roxy threw everything she had at her, all her anger, and pain, and frustration. It wasn't a coordinated or skillful move, it was pure, raw energy. It rushed over Gazelle like a wave, like a sheet of icy hail, like a sudden gust of freezing winter wind. Roxy's magic obviously had and affinity to cold things.

The other women tumbled backwards, confused and unable to withstand the sudden onslaught. It swept her halfway across the room. Roxy watched her with some fascination, trying to regain her own breath. She knew that she had now lost the element of surprise, and she wasn't sure if she could repeat what she had just done.

"Merlin?" She asked hopefully.

"Almost done."

Gazelle was lifting up to a crouch.

"Work faster?" Roxy suggested. "The world is falling apart, and there's an evil witch trying to kill me." Her voice sounded frantic even to her own ears.

Valentine was calling encouragements out to Gazelle, something in the nature of "Finish her off, kill her!"

What a lovely man, really.

His expression when heads started exploding in colorful fireworks all around them was all the more satisfying.

"You did it," Roxy said to Merlin, before she had to dodge another one of Gazelle's lightning fast attacks. Razor sharp steel caught her sleeve, but miraculously didn't break skin. She would not be this lucky next time. It was a real pity Valentine had apparently trusted Gazelle enough to not implant a chip in her neck.

She heard Merlin curse under his breath. Probably not a good sign.

Gazelle came at her again, and Roxy leapt over a prone, headless body in her rush to escape the blade on her left foot. She cleared the first body, but missed the one behind it, and tripped, only to find herself on the floor and entirely at Gazelle's mercy.

"No!" Her shout rang out before she could think about it, a last act of defiance, before the blade came down. Roxy felt all the air rushing out of her lungs with it. _I'm going to die, this is it, I'm going to die, sliced up like James, I'll be..._

Her ears rang, her heart hammered in her chest, and she couldn't breathe. The world blurred before her face, but there was no pain.

Dimly, she heard somebody call her name.


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "If the next thing out of your mouth is cute..."
> 
> Merlin chuckled. "I wouldn't dream of it. I trained you, remember?"
> 
> "Vividly. Particularly the part where you told me to jump out of a plane and later informed me that I might not have a parachute."

 

She didn't awake to an aseptic white hospital room with her family surrounding her, looking by degrees worried and irritated. Nobody held her hand. No machines beeped or whirred softly.

Instead, there was the sensation of movement. Not of the movement of a car, or a train. It was more... somebody was _carrying_ her. Somebody with large hands and strong arms, who smelled faintly of sweat and expensive aftershave. It wasn't an entirely unpleasant sensation.

Well.

Up until the point where she opened her eyes, looked up, and found that it was _Merlin_. After that, things turned more than slightly awkward.

"Merlin." Her voice sounded hoarse to her own ears. "Why are you carrying me around?"

"You were unconscious and leaving you laying on the floor next to Valentine's corpse did not seem like a particularly good idea," Merlin said promptly, and in a matter of fact way that _dared_ her to question his actions.

"You are also just light enough for me to comfortably carry you. I knew there was a reason I didn't take Eggsy with me. I'd have had to drag him by his ankles."

Put that way, it sounded reasonable enough.

Although - "Are you saying that I'm tiny?"

"Petite," Merlin suggested, his tone of voice rather guarded. Smart man.

"If the next thing out of your mouth is _cute_..."

Merlin chuckled. "I wouldn't dream of it. I trained you, remember?"

"Vividly. Particularly the part where you told me to jump out of a plane and later informed me that I might not have a parachute." She hadn't quite forgiven him for that one yet. However, there were questions she needed to ask. "Why was I unconscious? And why do I feel like a kitten that someone accidentally put in the washing machine?"

"They go together," Merlin said. He was still moving steadily, and apparently wasn't planning on putting her down anytime soon. "You over-exerted yourself. You were so desperate to not get sliced up by Gazelle - an understandable urge, by the way - that you pushed all the magic you had out at her, and then some. You quite literally robbed yourself of your own breath.When I found you, you were in the process of quietly asphyxiating, and Gazelle hung suspended in the air, mid-strike. Quite a feat for a novice magician." He did sound impressed. Roxy fought down the fuzzy warm feeling that threatened to spread inside her. She was not going to adopt Tristan's hero-worship of Merlin; down that road lay madness...

"I'm sorry," Merlin added after a brief pause, "I shouldn't have exposed you to this so soon, you have barely begun your training."

"It's not as if you had much of a choice," Roxy pointed out, hoping to convey that she did not blame him.

They had reached the hangar, and Merlin walked across it to the plane. It was eerily quiet. Roxy supposed that what guards had been left must have died when the chips implanted in their heads had exploded. They had never been more than cannon fodder to a man prepared to wipe out the vast majority of humankind.

What a thought.

"Do you think the others are okay?" She asked in a small voice. She thought of Tristan and Bedivere, hopefully on their way to join them. Alistair, still on the plane. What if somebody had been using their phone with Valentine's SIM-card in defiance of airline safety regulations? Merlin had warned him, but...

"Everyone at headquarters. And the knights," Merlin reassured her. "Well... everyone who hasn't had a chip implanted in their neck. We do train our people well."

Roxy thought about her parents and her brothers. Had her father been at the office when it happened? Had he been stabbed by an enraged client? And Alexander and Claire, and the baby?

Merlin gently set her down in one of the comfortable seats of the plane.

"Stay put," he ordered. Without necessity, because Roxy didn't feel like getting up or making any sudden or energetic movements in the immediate future. "I'll get you something sugary to eat, that should help."

"Is that how you deal with this?" Roxy asked curiously. It seemed rather too simple, and if she had learned one thing about magic it was that it usually wasn't simple. "Sugar?"

Merlin looked up from where he was rummaging around in a built-in cupboard. "Some people swear drinking blood does the trick. I'm not sure. I always found the thought of it rather gruesome."

"Yuck," Roxy said, grimacing at the thought. "Virgin's blood, I suppose?"

"If one can find an obliging virgin." Merlin shrugged. "It's probably nonsense."

He handed her an assortment of foods - Swiss chocolate, a banana, a bag of colorful wine gums, another bag containing HARIBO gold bears ("Bedivere has been addicted to them ever since an extended mission in Germany three years ago", Merlin explained), a box containing carefully crafted macarons, an orange, a bag of candied fruit.

"You want me to eat all of that?" Roxy asked dubiously. She felt like she could use a snack, but she knew her limits.

"Leave some of the wine gums for me," Merlin suggested.

She shrugged and broke off a piece of chocolate. It was very good, melting on her tongue into a rich cloud of bittersweet cocoa as only good chocolate does. Bliss.

Forget the champagne, and saving the world, Roxy was already beginning to glimpse some of the unexpected perks of her new job.

"What now?" she asked.

"Now we go and collect Eggsy," Merlin said. "You'll be happy to hear that he has had a safe landing."

Roxy instantly felt better and more cheerful at hearing that. "Good."

"And then," Merlin continued, "we have some cleaning up to do. Valentine has kept a fair number of people locked away in cells beneath his hideous palace. We need to free them and alert their family members and friends, and find a way to get them all home. Quite a few of them will turn out to be politicians and celebrities. After that, we go home."

"Sounds good." Roxy said, before taking a hearty bite of banana.

 

* * *

 

Eggsy hugged her tightly as soon as he came aboard. It hurt a bit, and he was cold from being out in the snow, but Roxy was too happy to see him to complain.

They shared the bag of candied fruit on their way back to Valentine's lair.

"Now," Merlin said, "We'll do this one person at a time. You go and talk to them. Ask them who they are, where they live and whom they want us to contact. Ask if they need medical attention. I'll be streaming your feed to the display in the cockpit and making the arrangements. I'll try to tie headquarters into the communications as well, that would speed things up considerably."

"How do we keep them from leaving their cells and running all over the place?" Eggsy asked. "All those headless bodies - that's not a sight everyone can stomach."

Merlin nodded. "That's why you won't open the cell door when you talk to them. We can't deal with them all at once. They'll be understandably confused and distraught."

"I don't think leaving them locked up is going to improve that," Eggsy pointed out.

"We don't have much of a choice. Tristan and Bedivere are on their way here, but until they arrive, we are on our own."

"How many people are we talking about?" Roxy asked, thinking of all the recent disappearances. Dozens? A hundred? More?

And how long had they been held captive by a mass-murdering megalomaniac? Days? Weeks? Months?

Merlin shook his head. "Difficult to say. If Valentine has been behind all the recent cases, and if he kept all of them in the same place... quite a few."

"Great," Roxy muttered darkly.

"Let's get to work," Merlin said, ushering them out of the plane.

 

* * *

 

 

Her legs still felt wobbly, and Eggsy was sending her furtive sideways looks without really daring to ask about it. Surprisingly, he had taken both the existence of magic and the fact that she wasn't entirely human - or at all, who was she kidding here? - in stride. Still, Roxy didn't feel qualified to explain had had happened during her fight with Gazelle, particularly since she wasn't entirely sure herself.

Merlin would have some explaining to do, once things had quieted down a bit.

"Do you reckon we'll find the Queen down here?" Eggsy asked as they made their way across the battlefield strewn with headless corpses to Valentine's dungeons.

"The Queen wasn't kidnapped," Roxy said.

"Maybe he replaced her with a double."

"Eggsy!" Roxy groaned. "We have enough to worry about already, without cooking up ridiculous conspiracy theories."

"To be fair, in the light of recent events, it doesn't seem entirely outside the realm of possibility," Merlin's disembodied commented. Roxy still hadn't gotten used to the glasses doubling as ear pieces.

She decided not to dignify the comment with a response and instead stopped in front of the first in a long row of solid looking doors.

"How do we do this?" Eggsy asked.

Roxy shrugged. "I don't know...? Knock, I suppose?"

He raised a hand, and tentatively rapped his knuckles against the door. "Hello?"

Silence. Then, in a rather harsh male voice: "Who's there?"

Well, that was a good question. It then occurred to Roxy that they didn't exactly have a plausible cover story. She looked at Eggsy, who seemed to have reached the same impasse she had.

"We... are here to help you." Not a lie.

Eggsy nodded encouragingly.

"Are you okay in there, sir? Do you need medical assistance?"

"I need for somebody to let me out of this cell and shoot the madman who locked me up," the man replied, sounding irritated, but not particularly distraught. His English was very good, but he had an audible accent - German or Austrian, if Roxy had to guess.

"We are working on that," Eggsy assured him, and she sent him an incredulous look, mouthing _'Really?'._

Eggsy shrugged. "What was I supposed to say?" he hissed under his breath, before adding in his normal voice: "Sir? Can you give us your name and nationality? Would you like us to contact your family, let them know you are safe?"

"I don't know, am I?" the man asked, irony heavy in his voice, but before either of them could reply to that, he sighed. "Fine. Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament, German citizen. And yes, please do let my wife know that I am still alive."

Roxy and Eggsy left the task of letting Inge Schulz know that her husband was still alive to Merlin, and after reassuring said husband that they would let him out of his cell as soon as possible, moved on to the next. Not all of their conversations went as well as the first one - which was to be expected. Many of the prisoners were relieved. Some of them were suspicious, refusing to believe that they were there to help. Others were angry, hurling insults at them. One woman simply wouldn't stop crying.

There were a few people who didn't understand English, or French, which was Roxy's first foreign language. She somehow managed to get her meaning across to one Italian and two Spanish-speakers from Mexico and Ecuador, and Merlin was able to help out with Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean - apparently he had a penchant for Asian languages.

Speaking of Asian languages, though - Eggsy, as it turned out when they came across a somewhat confused Pakistani general, apparently spoke Urdu. Roxy stared at him, perplexed, and Merlin probably did the equivalent back on the plane, if his sudden silence was anything to go by.

"Where did you learn - uh - whatever that was?" Roxy asked.

Eggsy flushed, looking a little embarrassed. "Urdu. And I don't speak it, not really. I just know a few words, okay? There were a lot of Pakistani kids in my school, and..."

"And...?"

He shifted uneasily. "And... I had a Pakistani girlfriend. Sort of."

Roxy whistled softly. "I bet _that_ went over well with her family."

"Yeah, no. Not really. Her brother and a cousin cornered me after school and broke my arm. They told me to leave her alone, and I did... I mean, I liked her, but not enough to risk serious bodily harm." He looked down at the floor. "I'm not proud of it. But in my defense, I was just a kid."

Roxy put a hand on his arm. "Nobody is judging you," she said, and Merlin mercifully remained quiet, so if he _was_ judging Eggsy, he kept it to himself.

They moved further along the block of cells, methodically going through them. Almost all cells were occupied. Richmond Valentine had been busy...

"Tristan and Bedivere are on their way," Merlin advised them a little while later, listening to a rant in what all three of them presumed was Uzbek, or some other Turkic language. "Tristan speaks Russian and I believe Bedivere knows some Turkish, maybe they'll get farther with this one. Leave him for later."

They did, moving on to the next cell. Which held a surprise.

"Tilde," the young woman inside said with surprising cheerfulness when Roxy asked for her name. "What's yours?"

"I'm not at liberty to say," Roxy said, because it was the first thing that came to her mind.

"Oh, mysterious," Tilde chuckled, "I like it. Also? That's bullshit, darling, pardon my language. If you are with some sort of government agency, and I suspect you are, you must be pretty new in the game. Look, I know you aren't supposed to give anybody your real name, but you must have a cover or two. So, what is it? Martha? Mary? Anne? Assuming you are British, which you most likely are. Love the accent, by the way."

Roxy turned to Eggsy, eyes wide. "Is she for real?" she mouthed.

Eggsy shrugged.

"You seem to be doing okay," Roxy said drily, turning back to Tilde. "What's your nationality?"

"Swedish. Third in line to the throne, actually. Are we playing twenty questions?  Since you won't tell me your name, I'm just going to call you Mary. I like your style, by the way. That tough girl attitude? Looks real good on you."

"We've found the Swedish princess," Eggsy told Merlin. And after a brief pause: "She seems to be rather taken with Roxy."

"Or on some really good drugs," Roxy muttered.

"Hey," said the Princess, "I'll have you know that this is my normal state. I'm an optimist, okay? I try to make the best of the situation. Are you seeing anyone?"

"Moving on," Roxy said firmly, walking to the next cell door.

"I think she likes you," Eggsy offered.

" _I think_ she's barking mad."

 

* * *

 

 

Tristan and Bedivere joined them, and after a brief round of hugs and acknowledgments of the fact that they were very happy to see each other alive, they split up to cover the remaining cells. Since there were now four of them, they moved a lot quicker and within another hour had everybody identified. By that time, Merlin was already coordinating the arrival of the first teams of various national and private security forces that would see their charges home safely.

"No need to stay any longer," Merlin determined. "The waters are getting murky. Get back on the plane, we are going home."

"Sounds lovely," Eggsy said. "Hey, Merlin? Could we... I mean, is it okay if we check on our families, first thing after we get back? I mean, I get that I'm probably in some serious trouble for poisoning Arthur, and I'll take the fall for it, but I need to know if my Mom and Daisy are doing okay, first."

"Yes, Eggsy, of course," Merlin said, his voice surprisingly gentle.

Eggsy breathed a deep sigh of relief and Roxy reached over to briefly squeeze his hand. She knew how much he cared about his family, particularly his baby sister. "Oh, good. I probably couldn't run from you anyway, could I?"

"Probably not," Merlin agreed. "We can send someone from HQ to check on your family right now, if you would like that, Eggsy. They are in London, after all."

"Thank you."

"What about the rest of you?" Merlin asked.

"My parents should be good," Tristan said with a brief, fond smile. "I'm not sure if they even know what a cell phone is, and I know they don't own one. Besides, they live in the middle of the woods. No reception, no neighbors."

Roxy thought of her own family. Her brothers and her father and sister-in-law all had smartphones... but they probably wouldn't need or accept free SIM cards. That didn't put them out of danger, of course, but maybe they had been lucky... her mother spend most of her time at home, and Roxy could only hope that she was safe. What if her father had been at the office, or in court, though? She wasn't particularly close with her family, but that didn't mean she didn't care whether they lived or died...

"I think I should try to call my parents." She was not looking forward to that call. What if something _had_ happened? What if Adrian or Alex...?

"Irvin?" Merlin asked. It was the first time Roxy had heard him use Bedivere's real name. "What about you?"

"My family spends most of their lives underwater. I don't think Valentine's signal would have affected them."

"True," Merlin admitted. "And for the record - your father is safe as well. He checked in with me two hours ago."

Roxy watched her friend's expression turn stony, and she noticed the quick, concerned glance Tristan flashed him. Irvin, it seemed, was not on the best of terms with his father.

"Duly noted," Irvin said crisply.

Her curiosity be damned, but Roxy snuck into the cockpit sometime later and sat down in the co-pilot's chair next to Merlin.

"So. What's the issue with Irvin's father?"

Merlin continued to look straight ahead, but to her surprise, he did not dodge the question.

"You and Percival aren't the only knights who are related to each other," he said. "Bedivere is Pellinore's adopted son."

"And they're not on friendly terms, I take it?"

Merlin sighed. "Pellinore hid Bedivere's second nature from him for a long time. Bedivere hasn't forgiven him yet. Maybe he never will."

"Why would he do that?" Roxy asked.

Merlin remained quiet for a long moment, as if considering. "Love, I think. He loved Bedivere's mother, but she was a selkie. They don't stay on dry land unless you take their seal skin away and make them forget that they are not entirely human. If Pellinore had told them, he would have lost his family. There is a good reason Bedivere loves Tristan as fiercely as he does - Tristan told him what he was and found his skin. But the same thing that makes Bedivere love Tristan also makes him hate Pellinore."

Roxy had yet to meet Agent Pellinore. She had known that he was one of the older knights, and also that he was famous for his bad luck. Now, however, she was rapidly forming a not particularly flattering opinion of him.

"I know what you are thinking," Merlin informed her. "But things aren't always as black and white as they seem at first glance. And for what it's worth, Pellinore has already paid for his sins. Tristan saw to that."

"Tristan?" Roxy asked, surprised.

"The _fae_ are known to be spiteful and mischievous, and they have a long memory," Merlin said, sounding oddly amused. "How did you think Pellinore came by his abiding bad luck?"

"I'll have you know that I resent your racial prejudice," Roxy said, aiming for dry but failing, because the idea of Tristan cursing somebody with bad luck was admittedly funny.

"It isn't prejudice when it's true."

"Whatever. Is Alistair back yet?"

"His plane touched down at Heathrow twenty minutes ago. He should arrive around the same time we do."

He turned out to be right. In fact, Alistair was waiting for them when they disembarked. He looked a bit rumpled, but he was still the best thing Roxy had seen in the last twenty-four hours.

She didn't realize she was running until she stumbled, her feet to weary to carry her any further. But by that time, Alistair was already beside her and caught her. Roxy threw her arms around him and buried her face at his shoulder.

There was no need for words. They understood each other.

 

* * *

 

 

Alistair took her home, and Roxy slept for thirteen hours straight. It was bliss. When she got up, she found a half-dressed Alistair in the kitchen, making breakfast. He looked like he hadn't been up very long himself.

Roxy took a moment to blink, yawn and admire the view.

"Your hair looks terrible." Normally, it was carefully combed and gelled into form, but right now it stuck up at odd angles, making him look boyish and vulnerable. Roxy secretly loved the look.

"Good morning to you, too," Alistair said, smiling and handing her a steaming mug. "It's a good day to be alive."

"Yes, it is," Roxy said, holding both the mug and his hands between hers.

-

Across town, Eggsy was making breakfast, elbow to elbow with his mother. The kitchen was too small, and they bumped into each other often, but it the atmosphere was comforting, familiar.

"We probably need to fix the bathroom door," Michelle said, out of the blue.

Eggsy grinned. "Yeah we do, Mum."

"I'm glad that's the only thing that needs fixing."

"Me, too."

-

Meanwhile, back at the Manor, Merlin was staring at the incident report on his screen. Unlike Roxy and Eggsy, he hadn't slept much, or well the past night.

Waking up to find this particular report waiting for him did not improve matters. He loathed paperwork, and this was the worst sort.

He reached for his cup of tea, but found it to be already empty. It was the fourth that morning, but there were some things not even tea could cure.

Merlin sighed and closed Harry Hart's file with a heavy heart, feeling as if something inside him, some invisible but essential part of him had died a silent death.

"Goodbye, my friend," he said quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Speaking of prejudice - obviously, not all Pakistani families would have issues with their daughter dating a young man who isn't a Muslim. But let's just assume that the family of Eggsy's high school sweetheart was rather conservative.  
> Spoken Urdu isn't terribly hard to learn; I picked up a bit when I was traveling in Pakistan, and Eggsy is a smart kid, so it seemed feasible that he would have learned a few things.  
> Also, for the record, most members of the Pakistani elites speak English. But in times of trouble, most of us revert to our first language. If somebody locked me up in an underground dungeon, I would probably curse in German.


	3. Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Most of the knights plus Eggsy had gathered around the round table - which wasn't actually round, a fact that everybody chose to graciously overlook - by the time Alistair and Roxy arrived. Bedivere waved at them from across the table, and Tristan looked up and smiled, but other than that it was a fairly glum congregation. Pellinore had a nasty cut running across the left side of his face, Kay carried one arm in a sling, and Gawain looked as if he hadn't slept in the past thirty hours or so.
> 
> Dagonet slipped into his chair, and for a little while everyone waited for Galahad to make his inevitably late entrance... until they all remembered that Galahad wasn't coming.

Roxy was in the shower, singing loudly and off-key, when Alistair got a call from Merlin.

"Good morning," he said, looking mournfully at the steaming cup of coffee he had just poured himself. It was only the second that morning, and when Merlin called, it usually meant that you wouldn't get to finish your coffee.

"Hardly," the wizard replied drily. "Have you watched the news yet?"

Truth be told, Alistair had been purposefully avoiding them.

"No."

"Do. It's all-out mayhem, all over the world."

"Wonderful," Alistair groaned. He paused to listen. Roxy had turned off the shower, but she was still singing. Considering her heritage, her complete lack of any musical talent or taste was even more astonishing. And Alistair would have loved nothing better than to listen to her singing off-key in the shower every morning, but that was beside the point.

"I need you to come to the shop," Merlin said, "and bring Lancelot."

"You know, it's quite impolite to simply presume that she's here," Alistair said, brows raised. He didn't really mind. Alistair had resigned himself to the fact that Merlin knew everything about everyone, and usually before they knew themselves.

"You have to admit that it's a logical assumption. For some reason, my latest recruitments all appear to come in matching pairs. I'm starting to feel like Noah here. I'm terrified to think what Eggsy may find in the next batch of recruits. Maybe a banshee or a female dragon."

It was not a joke, you could tell from his voice, and Alistair's mind shied away from the implications. He could deal with the _fae_ , they had been part of his live since his early childhood, but dragons... he didn't even want to think about dragons, and whatever else might be out there.

Better to think about Eggsy, who was mercifully human and hopefully going to stay that way.

"So you do plan to keep him." Not that there had been much doubt about that, after what Eggsy had done for _Kingsman_.

"We have two open positions to fill, and at least one qualified recruit," Merlin said matter-of-factly. And after a short pause he added: "And I feel I owe Harry that much..."

Alistair swallowed bitter bile at the thought of Harry Hart, laying dead on the pavement in front of a Church full of corpses.

But Harry would have been proud of Eggsy.

"That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about," Merlin continued. "I need somebody to go to the States and recover Harry's body and gear... and make sure that there are no traces left of what happened at that Church."

"Are you protecting his legacy, Merlin?" Alistair asked, taken aback.

"I am protecting _Kingsman_ ," Merlin replied stiffly. "Will you go?"

"Of course." Harry had been his friend, too.

"I'm calling a full meeting at two. Be there. Both of you."

"How could Arthur ever delude himself to the point where he thought _he_ was running _Kingsman_?" Alistair asked sarcastically.

"I have no idea." Merlin said and hung up.

 

* * *

 

Most of the knights plus Eggsy had gathered around the round table - which wasn't actually round, a fact that everybody chose to graciously overlook - by the time Alistair and Roxy arrived. Bedivere waved at them from across the table, and Tristan looked up and smiled, but other than that it was a fairly glum congregation. Pellinore had a nasty cut running across the left side of his face, Kay carried one arm in a sling, and Gawain looked as if he hadn't slept in the past thirty hours or so.

Dagonet slipped into his chair, and for a little while everyone waited for Galahad to make his inevitably late entrance... until they all remembered that Galahad wasn't coming.

"Gentlemen," Merlin said, pointedly ignoring the fact that not all of them were. Either it took him some time to get used to a female addition to the table - which Alistair doubted - or he didn't consider Roxy much of a lady. Or maybe _'gentlemen, lady, and assorted strays'_ would have been too much of a mouthful.

"We have lost two of our own, but I am afraid, the customary toast will have to wait. Not least because the cause of death in one of those two cases happened to be poisoned brandy."

"Followed by 'exploding head'," Tristan chimed in, and Merlin sent him a _look._

"What?" The younger wizard shrugged. "Let's call things by their proper names, shall we? In any case, I doubt you feel all that bad about Arthur. I know I don't. You can tempt fate, but in the end, she always gets you and holds you accountable. He betrayed us, and he tried to kill Eggsy. It's also possible that he sent Galahad into a death trap knowingly."

Gawain let out a soft curse at that. "See, I hadn't even thought of that yet."

"Bastard," Bedivere said quietly, but with conviction.

"Language," Merlin admonished in that comically distracted way he sometimes exhibited, as if he didn't even realize he was being paternal.

"So, no toast?" Kay summed up their exchange. "Shame. I could have used a drink. I just wasted four months of my life on an operation that has been rendered utterly useless by recent events, I come back and half of London is in shambles, and also, somebody shot my dog. I'm not a happy person right now."

"None of us are, I think," Alistair told him. "Sorry about your dog, though."

Kay acknowledged it with a brief nod.

"So, what's next?" Bedivere asked.

Merlin rubbed a hand over his face, looking tired and worn. "One of us has to go to Kentucky and retrieve Galahad's body and gear. I've asked Percival, are there any objections?"

The knights shook their heads.

Alistair silently added packing his suitcase to his to-do-list for the day.

"Secondly, we need to make sure the blueprints for Valentine's SIM cards don't fall into the wrong hands - preferably by destroying them, all related research and any and all machinery used to make them. I think it is fair to assume that most people associated with the development of the SIM cards died by having their heads blown off, but it pays to be certain. It's going to be tedious work. We will have to go over all of Valentine's records, financial or otherwise, search all of his residences, holiday homes, offices, factories and warehouses, find his hard drives, e-mail servers, phone records... anything that could be tied to the cards. Meanwhile somebody will have to clean up the shop - decrypt Arthur's files, find out the full extent of his connection with Valentine, see how far the corruption had spread."

Merlin looked at Dagonet. "You knew Arthur the longest of us and liked him the least. I think that makes you the perfect candidate for that job."

Dagonet smiled a humorless smile. "I agree."

"Take Eggsy as backup. He's an outsider with fresh eyes, he might see things the rest of us overlook." Merlin looked at Eggsy. "You asked me about punishment for killing Arthur. I think having to go through all of his paperwork should do nicely."

"Arthur was Charlie's uncle, right? Does that mean, Charlie inherits?" Eggsy asked with a moue of distaste.

"Fortunately not," Dagonet said. "If a knight dies unmarried and childless, his fortune always reverts back to _Kingsman_."

Eggsy frowned. "Don't tell me any of you guys are married?"

Gawain chuckled, but most of the knights looked a bit put out by his incredulous tone of voice. Alistair caught Roxy hiding a grin behind her hand.

"They are," Gawain said, nodding towards Tristan and Bedivere. "On paper, so is Pellinore, and Bedivere is his legal heir. Which is why Accounting is fervently hoping that Bedivere will survive the other two and ensure their assets revert back to _Kingsman_ through him when he dies."

"Dream on," Bedivere said wryly.

"Moving on," Merlin said sternly. "Who wants to join Percival on a trip to the States to take care of Valentine's legacy there?"

"I'll go," Gawain said, "I know most of our American contacts, and unlike _some people_ I could mention, I haven't seduced any of their girlfriends."

"Hey, don't look at me," Kay protested. "It was mostly James' idea. And it got us the information we needed in a very quick and expedient fashion."

"Not to mention enjoyable." Tristan grinned.

"Good," Merlin said, completely ignoring the exchange. "Pellinore, since you haven't alienated any of our allies by sleeping with their significant others, either, why don't you join Gawain."

Pellinore nodded.

"That leaves Kay, Lancelot, Bedivere and Tristan to join me in locating and destroying Valentine's other assets."

"That also leaves all the wizards in one place," Alistair noted. He didn't disapprove, in fact he preferred that Roxy should remain in London for the time being, but it surprised him a bit.

"Well, we are good at finding things," Merlin said, shrugging. "And as Kay has proven on numerous occasions, he is very good at destroying things. Particularly by blowing them into bits. Bedivere we just keep around for his good looks and amiable nature."

"I'm flattered," Bedivere said drily. "Personally, I think that somebody needs to control the madness that is three wizards and Kay in the same room."

A round of good-natured chuckles went around the table at that.

"It'll be fun," Kay said, slapping Bedivere on the shoulder.

"For whom?" Bedivere asked.

 

* * *

 

He had been booked on a flight to New York that night, and somebody had probably used money, influence, and threats of bodily harm to get him a seat - a fair bit of air travel was suspended in the wake of the narrowly avoided Apocalypse.

It left him time to pack, read the mission brief - bless the poor squire who had had to put together a mission brief on Harry Hart's death - and watch the footage from the church. It was bone-chilling. Alistair watched Harry move through the crowd with methodic, deadly precision. The outcome wasn't surprising; putting _Kingsman's_ resident expert on hand-to-hand combat in a room full of largely unarmed, untrained people, taking away his free will and replacing it with mindless rage could really only end one way.

It was like a terrible dance, choreographed by a madman.

But the worst of it came after the killings. The worst of it was Harry standing alone in a church full of corpses, with the light of reason returning to his eyes, and horrible realization with it.

Harry had _known._

Just before Valentine had killed him, Harry had come back to his senses, and he had died in the full knowledge that he was responsible for murdering all those people.

The thought was so monstrous that Alistair's mind struggled with it.

What must he have felt?

Just then, Roxy came in, finding him pale and shaken in front of the screen. "You look like you have seen a ghost. Is that the footage from Galahad's glasses?" she asked.

Alistair hastily closed the window. "Yes. And you aren't authorized to watch it."

She frowned. "Eggsy watched it."

"Accidentally, and I am willing to bet he wishes he didn't. I don't want you to watch it," he amended. "It's well and truly horrible."

"Oh." She stepped closer and put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry about Galahad. I didn't really know him, but from what Eggsy tells me, he was a great man."

"Eggsy may be slightly biased in that respect, but yes, he was." Alistair sighed. To think that Harry wouldn't come back... that he would never again waltz into a meeting, twenty minutes late, lean across Merlin's shoulder and steal his biscuits as he explained something on the screens, spar with Bedivere, or watch the recruits. Alistair had felt a sense of inevitable loss when James had fallen, even though they hadn't been very close, but to lose Harry...

"Is it standard procedure that when a knight dies, someone brings them back home?" Roxy asked.

Alistair nodded. "For several reasons. There is a need to retrieve all _Kingsman_ -issued equipment, for one. And we owe it to our people... _Kingsman_ was founded after the Great War, so its founders were intimately familiar with the pain people feel when they don't even know where their dead are buried. That is why the service takes care of all the funeral arrangements, and one of the knights personally informs the family, if there is any family. Incidentally, that's how Eggsy met Harry the first time. Harry came to inform Michelle Unwin of her husband's death."

"Huh," Roxy said. "He never told me."

"It's probably not a fond memory."

"What about Harry? Any family?"

Alistair shook his head. "They are all here, and they know." Merlin and Eggsy had watched the feed from Harry's glasses as he had died, and they would have been the two people Alistair would have contacted as Harry's nearest and dearest. Followed by the rest of the knights, of course.

Roxy nodded her understanding. "Speaking of family - have you heard anything from your Mum yet? I still can't reach Dad, or Alex, or Adrian. Cell phone reception is pretty shaky in a lot of places, it was either interrupted on purpose by local authorities, or by people raging against cell phone towers. And nobody is answering the landline."

"Have you tried your father's office?"

"Nobody's picking up." Roxy shook her head. "He's probably at home, with Mum. With all that happened, she must have had a nervous breakdown."

"I can try to call my mother again," Alistair offered.

He did, putting the phone on speaker, and when she unexpectedly picked up, wished he hadn't.

" _Alistair_? _"_ His mother asked, incredulous. She had good reason to, it wasn't as if he called home frequently. "My God, you're alive and well, I'm so glad..."

"Mum," Alistair said, "how are you?"

"I am well, my dear, or at least as well as can be expected, with all that has happened... don't worry... I'm at the hospital... oh dear, how do I say this - Alistair? Your uncle is dead, and your cousin Alexander is very badly injured. He hasn't been awake yet. They were caught at the office, when it happened..."

Alistair felt Roxy flinch, and a startled _"What?!"_ escaped her.

"What was that?" his mother said.

"Mum, what about Aunt Lydia, and Claire, and her son?"

"They are all here at the hospital with me," his mother said. "Lydia is in a very bad state, as expected... but Claire is holding up surprisingly well, and the little one doesn't really understand what's going on... they haven't found Adrian yet, what with all the confusion. But we hope he will call, as soon as things settle down a bit. I don't suppose you've heard anything from Roxanne? She hasn't been in touch with any of us, since she disappeared, but I suppose if she would contact anyone, it would be you."

 _She is standing right behind me_ , Alistair thought, but before he could say anything, Roxy said: "I'm here."

"Oh. Well, that's good, then. Roxanne, I am so sorry about your father..."

Roxy's fingers dug into Alistair's shoulder painfully.

"What about Alex?" she asked.

"We don't exactly know. The doctors say it's too early to make predictions. Can you come and visit? I think it would really help your mother..."

"Maybe in a few days," Roxy said.

Alistair had no doubt Merlin would let her go, he was surprisingly understanding about family, but he would rather she didn't go alone. Maybe if he could wrap things up quickly in Kentucky...

"Well, take down the name of the hospital and my phone number, in any case."

Roxy grabbed pen and paper and did. After Alistair ended the call, she stared at the piece of paper stupidly. "My father is dead." It sounded as if she was stunned, more than anything else. He knew that Roxy had never been particularly close to her parents, which made a lot more sense once you knew that she was not actually their child, but still, they had raised her.

"Yes," Alistair said, turning to face her.

Roxy shook her head. "It feels very strange," she said.

"Will you go to see them?" He didn't quite know what to say. They were at once her family and not her family. And maybe they had always felt that something was slightly off about her, because neither her parents nor her brothers had ever tried to understand her or form a real bond with her.

"I don't know. I suppose I should..."

Before he left for the airport, Alistair made a point of emphatically telling Tristan and Bedivere to keep an eye on her. They knew quite a bit about difficult family relationships themselves.

Tristan nodded solemnly. "Two eyes," he said.

 

* * *

 

While Alistair generally got along well with Pellinore, the man wasn't exactly the most entertaining companion for a transatlantic flight. He was probably the least talkative person Alistair had ever met, which - admittedly - wasn't the worst handicap for somebody who spent a considerable part of his professional life trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. However, Pellinore also appeared determined to let as little of his character shine through the outer layer of tailored suit and habitual politeness as humanly possible. That, or he did not have a whole lot of character to begin with (which was Tristan's readout of the matter, but to be fair, he was rather severely biased against Pellinore).

Alistair had been with Kingsman for well over a decade, and he still didn't know his given name. He also didn't know if Pellinore was interested in sports, if he was seeing anyone, what his favorite foods were, whether he was religious, or what he did in his spare time.

What he _did_ know about Pellinore he had learnt mostly from accident: he was estranged from both his wife and son, pretty obvious, considering that Irvin refused to speak to him, and that Alistair had been present when the rift between them happened. Pellinore also clearly did not approve of his son-in-law, which was somewhat understandable, given that said son-in-law had cursed him with an enduring case of bad luck and that Tristan would have been a challenge for the most accepting in-laws. Although the fact that he was a magician did not seem to bother Pellinore much, given that he was clearly familiar with magic and knew a spell or two himself. Alistair wasn't entirely certain of Pellinore's stance on the _fae_ , but given that he had married a selkie, and raised her son, he probably wasn't too fussy about non-human beings.

Other than that, though... well. Pellinore was as well trained as any _Kingsman_ knight, but if he had any special talents, he had yet to reveal them to Alistair. His missions were always meticulously planned and executed, which no doubt delighted Merlin, and he preferred to work alone.

Maybe, Alistair mused, Pellinore wasn't happy to be sharing a row on this plane with a fellow knight, even though in his eyes, it could certainly have been worse. It could have been Tristan, for example. Alistair watched him surreptitiously, but all Pellinore did was drink coffee and sparkling water, and read what looked like a rather voluminous scientific paper on climate change. _In German_. After he had finished the paper, he turned to the onboard entertainment and watched the Italian version of _The Godfather._ Alistair was mildly surprised when after the movie had finished, he didn't get up to find somebody to flirt with in French or in Tagalong.

Instead, Pellinore turned to him, as if a strange inner clock had told him that now was the ideal time for small-talk.

"It's surprisingly delicate of Merlin to send you to retrieve Galahad's body," Pellinore stated. And if this was his idea of small talk, Alistair understood why he didn't seem to have a very active social life.

"As opposed to...?" he asked.

Pellinore gave a brief shrug. "Eggsy. It's sort of customary to leave the job of bringing home a fallen knight either to the knight who recruited them, or to the last member of _Kingsman_ they recruited themselves. As Harry's sponsor isn't with us anymore, obviously, that would have left Eggsy."

"He already lost his father and surrogate father figure to _Kingsman_ ," Alistair said, "there's really no need to rub salt into the wound. I would very much hope that Merlin wouldn't send Roxanne after me, either, or Irvin after you."

Pellinore shook his head. "I don't think Irvin would have any compunctions about it. He probably wouldn't enjoy the task, but he is nothing if not correct. It's not likely to happen anytime soon, though.

I believe, when Tristan cursed me with bad luck, he also wished that it might last a long, long time. He probably inadvertently gave me a long life and exceptionally good health in the bargain. Isn't that a nice little irony?" The was an undertone of bitterness to his voice, but it wasn't very pronounced. It almost seemed as if Pellinore had resigned himself to his fate.

" _Fae_ curses and spells work that way, I'm told," Alistair said carefully. "They often have unexpected side-effects." Case in point, the various spells Roxy had placed on him over the years, likely without even realizing it. In thought, all were benevolent and harmless, but their side-effects ranged from odd to downright unpleasant. For example, Alistair was able to dodge bullets and knives with unfailing precognition, because Roxy wanted him to be safe. However, the same innocent wish made him evade large bodies of water, because she had projected her own fear of the sea onto him. He hadn't caught a cold since Roxy had been eight years old, and taken pity in him when he was ill, but the same spell had since rendered various vaccines useless, a vaccination against rabies among them. "That's odd," Merlin had commented, when faced with the lab results. "I suggest that you try to not get bitten by a rabid dog, bat, or human."

Percival also had a sneaking suspicion that the fact that he was apparently perfectly unattractive to humans of all genders, age groups and personal preferences, had less to do with his own appearance and personal habits than with Roxy's desire to hold onto him forever. She had been perfectly honest when she had told him that she never wanted to leave him again. However, when you turned that around, it also meant that Alistair was never going to leave her. And since somewhere in her unconscious mind, Roxy appeared to have concluded that he might leave if he got into a romantic relationship with somebody, she had burned that bridge for him.

Alistair could have alleviated her fears in that respect. He was perfectly disinterested in entering into a sexual relationship with anybody, and since he had already found his soul mate, he saw no point in bothering with the nuisances of romance, either. He rather doubted that she would understand him, though, and he had no desire to make things awkward between them.

 

* * *

 

While Eggsy followed Dagonet down the hallway to Arthur's office, Kay, Bedivere and the wizards occupied one of the operations rooms. Merlin shoed out two squires, but not before dropping a long list of tasks on each of them. The squires left with the resigned look of people used to this sort of behavior from their boss.

"The squires have been working on a constantly updated list of Valentine's known associates, residences, and business endeavors for months," Merlin told them, and showed to them what looked less like a list and more like a full-scale databank on one of the screens. "In some cases, it is a simple matter of going in, having a look around and ensuring that the place is clean of any compromising material. Same with the business partners and employees - Valentine was fairly paranoid about keeping his secrets, which now works in our favor. I doubt that there are many people who knew details of his plan and did not end up either in his dungeon, or with their heads blown off. The squires have already crossed the members of the latter category off our list. For now, we will concentrate on employees who held key positions in the development of the SIM cards and related technology."

"We are not going to kill them, are we?" Roxy asked suspiciously.

"Not if it can be helped. Enough people have died and suffered for Valentine's madness. Magic can make people forget certain bits of knowledge, and can hide or erase memories. Once we have identified our primary suspects, you, Tristan and I will pay them each a visit."

That was a relief. But..."I don't know how to do that yet," Roxy protested. "Make people forget things...?"

"You'll learn. It's a useful skill. Tristan will teach you."

"I will?" Tristan said, sounding faintly surprised.

Merlin raised his eyebrows at him. "I would be rather disappointed if after close to seventeen years as my apprentice, you weren't able to teach a novice magician a few spells. Particularly since her magic is probably stronger than yours and mine combined."

"Merlin, stop picking on him," Roxy said irritably, before Tristan even had a chance to reply. "Also, the only thing my magic appears to be good for is destroying things."

Merlin shrugged. "You'll use it to destroy memories." He eyed her speculatively. "And you may have a point, one can never be too careful when it comes to raw magic... you may want to practice on one of the dogs, before progressing to humans."

"That's animal cruelty," Roxy said, maybe just to rile him up a bit.

"Well, I'd rather you didn't scramble Tristan's brains," Merlin replied. "Despite your protestations, I like him the way he is."

"Coming from you, that's almost a declaration of pure and undying love," Tristan said, grinning.

"Don't get ahead of yourself," Merlin muttered. "And now go, and take Roxy someplace where you can show her how to make her dog forget about a hidden bone, or something of the sort. Maybe the rest of us can get some actual work done in the meantime."

"I love you, too, Merlin," Tristan called over his shoulder, as he shepherded Roxy out of the room.

"He isn't nearly as mean as he'd like to be," Roxy noted, once they were out of the door.

"No, he isn't," Tristan agreed. "And Harry's death hit him pretty hard, you can see it if you know what to look for. They were very close friends." He sighed. "I'll _miss_ him. Harry, I mean. _Kingsman_ won't be the same without him. How is Eggsy holding up, by the way?"

"I think he's more upset than he lets on," Roxy admitted, "but I don't know how to help him. I've never been good at these sorts of things... he really looked up to Harry, and he had to watch him die - that's _horrible._ " A thought occurred to her. "Tristan... do you think I could make Eggsy forget about watching that footage from Harry's glasses? It's sure to haunt him."

Tristan smiled briefly at her. "It's a nice idea. But you would have to ask him. We don't put magic on our friends, not without permission."

Roxy nodded, half to herself. It was a self-explanatory rule; to use magic on someone you cared about without their permission would be a serious breach of trust. But that put her into a bit of a quandary - she doubted that Eggsy would let her take the bad memories away, if she asked him. Not even if they gave him nightmares. Eggsy was stubborn that way, and he would want to hold onto every shred of memory about Harry, even the bad ones.

She suddenly wished she had known Harry Hart better. He certainly seemed like a man worth knowing.


	4. Part IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "See, here's a thought - do you want to be haunted by Harry for the rest of our life?"

 

If Harry Hart had ever imagined the Afterlife, he certainly hadn't pictured it like this. Not as an empty room, with white walls, a white ceiling, and a white floor. There was a black door, just opposite, but that was it. No furniture. No colors. Nothing.

It was, in short, more than a bit disappointing.

He looked around, trying to make sense of it. Was this some dimension of Hell Dante Alighieri had neglected to mention? Maybe a dimension reserved specifically for people who routinely violated _'Thou shalt not kill'_?

If so, there really should have been more people around.

And if this wasn't Hell, but some sort of waiting room? (For Heaven, or Hell, or the Underworld, or whatever other forms of afterlife humanity had come up with over the course of several millennia of complicated and convoluted history?)

Something cool and slightly wet, unmistakably alive, nudged his right hand, and Harry jumped involuntarily. He looked down - a black lab looked back up at him from soulful dark eyes. With a start, he recognized it as the puppy (though now a fully grown dog) Kay had chosen during his time as a recruit.

It answered to the unlikely name of Snuffles. Kay had wanted to give it a somewhat more dignified name, something that would not embarrass him in front of his brothers-in-arms, but his daughter Emily, then four years old, had taken one look at the puppy and decided that it was named Snuffles; and there was really no arguing with a child her age. Emily was the eldest of Kay's three children from various failed attempts at committed long-term relationships, and by now eleven years old.

Harry looked at the dog and wondered what it was doing here. If this was the Afterlife, or at the very least some sort of cosmic waiting room, why was he sharing it with Kay's dog, which had been alive and in good health when he had left London?

"Did you die as well?" Harry asked.

Snuffles whined, and sniffed at the white floor.

"Yes, I know, it's disappointing," Harry said to her. He looked at the black door. It was the only thing that stuck out in the room, so there almost had to be a purpose there.

He decided that he was tired of waiting, walked towards it, grasped the handle, opened the door...

 

* * *

 

 

... and stepped into a familiar room, with a table that wasn't actually round, but called _'the round table'_ anyways.

Unsurprisingly, but rather to Harry's disappointment, the room was empty. He briefly wondered what he was supposed to be doing here, and decided that the only way to find out was to continue his exploration of this strange half- or afterlife, or whatever _this_ was. He left Snuffles sniffing around under the large table and exited the room by the door, stepping into a very familiar, but equally empty hallway.

Where was everybody?

He hoped that Valentine hadn't managed to enact whatever ludicrously murderous plan he had been cooking up, and managed to wipe out all or most of humanity in the process, but it occurred to him that after a catastrophe of such magnitude, there ought to have been more ghosts around. Besides, he caught the faint sound of two voices drifting down along the long hallway now, and they drew him into that direction.

Arthur's office, he realized with a start. The voices were emanating from Arthur's office, its solid wooden door not fully closed, which was most unusual, because Arthur valued his privacy. (And with good reason, the head of a secret organization naturally had more things to hide than to reveal. Arthur's files on the _Kingsman_ finances alone would have kept several government agencies very happily occupied for a decade or so.)

What was strange, moreover, was that neither of the voices was Arthur's. Harry recognized Dagonet's low baritone and careful enunciation with the ease of long years of close contact, and the other voice, too, was so painfully familiar that he felt it like a stab between the ribs.

_Eggsy._

But what was he doing here? He had no business being in Arthur's office, or at the Mansion at all. Harry remembered with painful clarity that the boy ( _his_ boy, because who was he kidding here, and death made him honest) had failed the dog test. He also remembered, with bitter regret, the ensuing argument.

He had been too harsh with Eggsy, blinded by his own disappointment and anger. It was hardly Eggsy's fault; he had had the disadvantage from the start, out of his game, peerless, and not enjoying the intangible, but very important boon Percival's candidate had - Merlin's taciturn approval. The game had been rigged from the start; and he could not even blame Percival for breaking the rules and preparing his candidate for the final test, because if you were being perfectly honest and realistic about it, there was just no way Merlin would have let a candidate with Roxy's abilities slip through his fingers.

Filled with regrets and memories of those last few moments with Eggsy, moments he should really have spent better than arguing and lecturing, Harry hesitated outside the door, but then it occurred to him that there _had_ to be a reason why he was here, and maybe it was some last chance at redemption, a chance to apologize to Eggsy and to make peace.

God, he hoped so.

Slowly, carefully, he reached for the door handle. His hand passed right through it.

Oh. Well.

That was... unfortunate. But maybe it shouldn't have been surprising.

With a deep sigh, Harry walked right through the door and into the room that was in a state of considerable and highly unusual disarray, with paper files spread out over all available flat surfaces, stacked on top of each other, some open, some closed. Maybe there was a method to this particular madness, but if so, it eluded Harry.

In the middle of this paperwork chaos were Dagonet and Eggsy, the former sitting at Arthur's desk, jotting down notes on a sheet of paper, the latter sitting on the edge of the desk, reading out bits from a file. Mostly series of numbers, Harry noticed. It didn't really surprise him; Arthur had been a scientist before joining the ranks of Kingsman, it made sense that he would use numerical codes in his secret notes and correspondence.

And yet it seemed as if Dagonet and Eggsy had cracked the code. But for what purpose? They had essentially broken into Arthur's office and were stealing his secrets, why? Had Arthur been kidnapped or killed, and were they desperate to find a certain piece of information?

"What are you doing here?" Harry asked - and they both ignored him.

Fact: it really sucked to be a ghost and go unnoticed.

What was the point of all this, if he could do nothing, communicate nothing, just stand by and watch?

Maybe it _was_ Hell. Maybe he was already paying for his (numerous) sins.

"I do wonder why he bothered to encode this," Dagonet said, not looking up from his notes, but shaking his head, "paranoid old bastard."

"Habit, maybe?" Eggsy suggested dubiously. "It's not standard procedure, is it?"

"Not that I'm aware of. In any case, it would have been easier to simply ask Merlin to put some sort of seal or protection spell on the files."

"Maybe there's something in here he didn't want Merlin to see," Eggsy suggested.

Dagonet finally looked up, chuckling. "Lad, let me tell you - attempting to hide a secret from Merlin is as futile as trying to cheat Death. It can't be done. He's the most powerful wizard in Britain. If he wants something, he'll find a way to get to it."

"I'm glad he's on our side," Eggsy said slowly, as if the full extent of Merlin's powers had only dawned to him just now. Harry himself had experienced several such moments; two of them, embarrassingly, in the presence of Merlin himself. You never really got used to working with a wizard.

"You, and everybody else," Dagonet affirmed. "It's part of my nightly prayers _'keep my brothers save, and save us from Merlin ever going rogue...'"_

Eggsy laughed at that, and Harry regarded him fondly.

"I don't think Merlin would do that," the young man said thoughtfully. "He's trying real hard not to let it show, but _Kingsman_ is a bit like his family, right? He cares about you lot."

"He does." Dagonet nodded. "And for the record - the lot includes you, now."

Eggsy shuffled papers, looking down and probably hiding a slight blush. "I know, it's just... weird, I guess."

Harry held his breath - out of habit, he understood that he actually wasn't even obliged to breathe anymore. _Kingsman_ had accepted Eggsy, after all. Probably, he realized, as his own successor.

"I am very proud of you," he told Eggsy, who - of course - couldn't hear him. Still, it was true. And it felt good to say it.

Dagonet shrugged. "You will get a codename, and your seat at the table, as soon as things settle down a bit." He paused, briefly. "I admit, it will take me some time to get used to thinking of you as _'Galahad'_ , but we will all get over that. And Harry never used the codename much, except on missions. He thought it a bit too fanciful."

(Harry nodded.)

Eggsy was quiet for a little bit, maybe lost in thought, but then he said in a low voice: "I really miss him."

Harry's heart broke at that. He fancied he could feel the cracks running over its surface, the shattered pieces drifting off in all directions.

"Of course you do," Dagonet told Eggsy, his voice kind. "We all do; but Harry was your mentor, that is different. The knight who brought me into _Kingsman_ , Alistair's predecessor as Percival, died peacefully in his bed, surrounded by family and friends, and after I had had a chance to say my goodbyes; and still I suffered like a dog. It gets easier as time passes, but I still miss him. We are all brothers, but there is a special connection to your mentor. - Well, unless you are Bedivere, who won't even talk to his, but that is a family issue. Other than that, you get those very close mentor-recruit relationships everywhere. I would even go so far as to say that _Kingsman_ is built on them. Merlin and Tristan, Percival and Lancelot, to a lesser extent, Gawain and Percival." He smiled faintly. "I do consider Kay one of the banes of my existence, but I can't imagine Christmas without him. Family is a good analogy. Privately, I regard Kay's children as my grandchildren."

"Kay has kids?" Eggsy blurted out, sounding surprised and possibly slightly terrified. Harry chuckled to himself. He knew for a fact that Dagonet kept pictures - multiple pictures - of the children in tasteful silver frames on his office desk, and that he loved to talk about them. Never mind that Dagonet would have been just barely old enough to be Kay's father; he adored those children.

"Yes, I know. Hard to imagine," Dagonet said to Eggsy, who was valiantly struggling to get a grip on his facial expressions. "Surprisingly enough, he is a pretty good father, too."

"Huh." Eggsy seemed unsure what to make of that, and opted for an old favorite, switching topics. "So... did _Arthur_ recruit anyone? Because if he did, maybe we should ask that person to help us deal with his files."

"It's a clever thought, but the last knight Arthur recruited was James, Roxanne's predecessor. None of his later suggestions made it through the tests, usually because Merlin liked other people better. Except Bedivere. Merlin wasn't convinced, but he did very well in the tests, and he had overwhelming support from the other knights.

Charlie, Arthur's last candidate, was unfit. Well... you would have met him."

Eggsy frowned, his distaste obvious. "He was an ass."

"Quite."

"It's a shame, though. This is going to be a lot of work, and we could have used some help," Eggsy mused.

"True, but let's be honest - if Harry had had any secrets that we needed to look into now, would you have helped uncover them?" Dagonet asked gently. "Wouldn't you rather have done everything in your power to prevent us from finding anything incriminating...?"

"Harry wasn't crooked," Eggsy stated with absolute conviction and no small amount of indignation in his voice, and Harry fought the sudden irrational desire to hug him.

"No, of course not," Dagonet said, "it was just an example. But I doubt James would have been of much help."

"What'll happen to _Harry's_ papers, and his house and stuff...?" Eggsy asked.

"Merlin," Dagonet said laconically.

_Oh no, no, no..._ Harry cursed under his breath, realized that nobody could hear him, dropped the act and cursed aloud. No! He had _never_ wanted Merlin to have to do that, it was cruel.

_Stupid, so stupid, I should have thought about that!_ Death had always been a very real possibility, and Harry berated himself for not preparing for it better. He had left a will, and anyone who went through his papers would easily find it, but he hadn't ever spared a thought to the rest of the arrangements associated with a knight's death.

And of course, Merlin would take the task of sorting out his friend's estate on himself, bloody masochist that he was.

Eggsy, Dagonet, and Arthur's office all faded out of view as Harry rushed out of the room - this time not even bothering to use the door but walking straight through the wall, as befitted his ghostly state - in search of Merlin.

 

* * *

 

 

The next knight he found wasn't Merlin, but a slightly out of breath Tristan, jogging down the stairs to the basement of the Mansion. Since Tristan had a well-known tendency to shadow his mentor, Harry decided to follow him. Besides, there was a slight chance that the younger knight might react in some way to his presence - _fae_  blood and all.

Sadly, the hand he tried to place on Tristan's shoulder passed right through the flesh, and Tristan didn't even turn.

"Some wizard you are," Harry complained. Tristan ignored him and continued apace until he reached the door to Merlin's operations room. He hesitated a moment, as if he expected something unpleasant to hide behind that door. "If there be monsters here, I somehow doubt they are hiding inside Merlin's office, Tristan. Not even monsters are that stupid," Harry told him. He was ignored again; the younger knight squared his shoulders (given Tristan's lithe built, the gesture looked a bit odd) and opened the door.

Harry followed him into the room and they found Merlin bent over what looked like a very old book bound in dark, decaying leather. Something about that book, and Harry couldn't really put a finger to what it was exactly, was off. It had an unfriendly air to it, and if the way Tristan flinched when he caught sight of it was any indication, Harry wasn't just imagining things.

"Where did you get _that_?" Tristan asked, gingerly stepping closer and eyeing the book with distrust. He kept a careful distance between himself and the offending tome.

"From my own master," Merlin said, without raising his head. Harry supposed that after seventeen years of being shadowed, he was used to Tristan walking into his office unannounced.

"Well, I hope you know that it's evil," Tristan stated, wrinkling his nose as if the book gave off a bad smell. Who knew, maybe it did.

"It's a book, Tristan. Books are things, and evil demands intent, which they usually lack," Merlin replied, looking up at his apprentice. His voice was weary, and he looked...

"You look terrible," Tristan said.

Yes. That.

Merlin's face was pale and lined by deep shadows and sorrows. His shoulders sagged as if they had to carry the weight of the world.

"Charming," Merlin said drily.

Tristan reached out a hand to touch him, but apparently thought better of it, and Harry couldn't tell if it was the book or Merlin's expression that put him off.

"Let me rephrase that: what can I do to help, or more to the point, what can I do to get you to put that evil book - yes, it's evil - away and to get a decent meal and eight hours of sleep?"

"I can't sleep." Merlin rubbed a hand over his eyes. Harry barely resisted the urge to put an arm around his shoulders and draw him close. The book didn't scare _him_ , but the idea that his arm would pass right through Merlin certainly did.

"Can't or won't?" Tristan persisted. "Because I'm sure it could be arranged - sleeping pills work on wizards, too."

"And leave the rest of you to fend for yourselves?" Merlin asked wryly. "I don't think so."

Tristan rolled his eyes. "We aren't completely helpless, you know. Roxy alone could probably wipe out a small town, if let loose."

"My point exactly," Merlin said, shaking his head. "She doesn't understand the true extent of her powers, and her control over them is shaky at best. How is she doing with the memory spells?"

"She's a quick study, but she has a tendency to use a little too much force. Some of the people she hits with those spells are probably going to be a bit peculiar afterwards and forget everything they ever knew, but since they were Valentine's friends and allies, I can't really bring myself to feel sorry about that." Tristan shrugged. "She'll do well. She keeps spilling magic all over the place, with some unusual side effects, but it's usually benevolent and I don't think she even realizes it, most of the time."

"I noticed that," Merlin said. "I always had my suspicions about various enchantments placed on Alistair, and now I know where he got them. Is she doing it to anyone else?"

Tristan shook his head. "Not that I know of. You and I are both protected by our own magic, Irvin appears to be immune to _fae_ spells - at least, mine have never worked on him - and the only other knight she is close to is Eggsy, but he seems to be clean of enchantments."

"Good."

Tristan took a tentative step closer. "About that book..."

Merlin groaned. "You're like a dog with a dead rat. Fine. It's a necromantic text, and I had to look something up."

"What?" Tristan exclaimed, obviously alarmed.

Harry didn't know a whole lot about magic - truth be told, he usually preferred not to think about it - but even he knew that necromancy was bad news.

Merlin raised a hand. "I'm not planning to conduct any nefarious rituals just yet. As I said, I had to look something up."

If Tristan _had_ been a dog (with or without a dead rat), he would have been quivering with barely controlled anxiety. The book obviously bothered him, and so did Merlin's offhanded suggestion that he could use it.

"Will you put it away? Or better yet, burn it..."

Merlin gave a humorless smile. "It probably wouldn't burn." He watched Tristan thoughtfully for a moment. "Does it bother you that much?"

"It gives off an aura like the stench of a rotting piece of meat. A large piece of meat," Tristan said with a shudder. "Can't you feel it?"

"It makes me feel somewhat uneasy," Merlin admitted.

"Ugh. Why would you even keep such a thing?"

"You never know when it might be useful." But, in a gesture that was an obvious concession to Tristan's sensitivities, he pushed the book away. It slowly slid towards the far end of the desk, giving the impression of a snail or something similarly slow, slouching, and slimy. It seemed altogether more alive and aware than an inanimate object had any right to be.

"Yes, you never know when you might need to raise the dead," Tristan muttered sarcastically, eyes still on the book - but then he drew in a sharp breath, his gaze back on Merlin, wide-eyed and alarmed. "No...! Merlin...? You are not thinking of... I mean, you can't bring him back." His voice dropped in volume towards the end of his statement, down to almost a whisper.

Having recently caused a whole lot of deaths, and apparently died himself, Harry had a bad feeling about this. He had a sneaking suspicion as to who Tristan was talking about...

"Look," Tristan continued, reaching out for Merlin and putting a hand on his shoulder (Harry watched somewhat jealously), "I know you're devastated. I get it. It's _Harry_ , after all. We'll all miss him very, very much, but I don't think it would even work, and you wouldn't be doing anyone a favor. I doubt Harry intended to come back as a mindless zombie."

Certainly not, Harry thought. Much as he would have liked to apologize to Eggsy and say goodbye to his friends, the idea of rotting flesh and mindless shambling around was pretty gruesome. If it even worked that way. He had never heard of a wizard raising the dead outside of stories.

"I wasn't..." Merlin began to protest, but under Tristan's skeptical look he faltered and sighed. "Well. Maybe I _was_ considering it for a moment or two. Wouldn't you?"

"No," Tristan said firmly. "Irvin would murder me if I did something like that to him, and I'm guessing, so would you. Besides, it's wrong. I may be reckless on occasion, but even I know that disturbing the Afterworld is a really, really bad idea."

"I would definitely haunt you, if you tried to raise me from the dead," Merlin replied with a small smile, putting one of his own hands on top of Tristan's.

"See, here's a thought - do you want to be haunted by Harry for the rest of our life?"

"I'm going to be, one way or another," Merlin said quietly. After a moment he added: "That's not why I brought out the book, though. Percival reported from Kentucky. It seems that some of the corpses from the church have gone missing from the morgue. Including Harry's."

Somebody had stolen his corpse? Harry bristled at the thought. What was the world coming to...?

"And you think..." Tristan did not finish the sentence.

"There aren't a whole lot of good reasons to steal a corpse. Harvesting of body parts is one, sorcery is another. I want Percival to look into both, but he's going to need assistance."

"Will you go to Kentucky?" Tristan asked.

"No, but you should go. Percival needs a wizard's help. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I have a bad feeling about this."

Tristan nodded. "Okay." He seemed relieved, as if he had feared Merlin would insist on going himself. More quietly, he added: "We'll bring him home. I promise."

Dying sucked, Harry concluded glumly. Especially, if you had to watch your friends mourn you without being able to offer any comfort. _It didn't hurt_ , he wanted to say (it hadn't), and _I'm fine_ (he wasn't, but nobody ever intends _'I'm fine'_ to be a statement of fact, that's not the point).

There was more. _I'll miss you_ and yes, _I love you_ , too. There was really no point denying it, now that he was dead, no pride or prudish fear of admitting his feelings.

Too late.

Merlin quietly squeezed Tristan's hand. It was a gesture of gratitude.


	5. Part V

Their American brothers, far more apt at navigating the convoluted tangle of secret and semi-secret agencies that had evolved and thrived on their soil in the past century or so, had provided Alistair with a cover story and contacts. Thus, he found himself in a windowless room, air-conditioned down to Arctic temperatures, drinking bad coffee - still better than what they liked to call tea in this godforsaken country - and listening to a bald, sweating man in an ill fitting suit ramble about the progress of the police investigation into what had been dubbed the "Church Massacre".

The two security cameras overlooking the parking lot had conveniently _malfunctioned_ \- here there be witches - and the Americans didn't have access to the video from Harry's glasses, so they were stumbling around in the dark. Preliminary evidence seemed to suggest that the vast majority of deaths had been caused by one exceptionally enraged individual, but as Charles Tully - call me Charlie - told Alistair, they had already discounted this theory as unrealistic.

Alistair, who had trained with Harry Hart, hid a humorless smile.

"Your colleague mentioned that several of the bodies found at the church have gone missing from the morgue," he prompted. As far as he was concerned, it was the only relevant question right now. The real perpetrator of the Church Massacre had already met his just punishment, courtesy of _Kingsman,_ and Alistair wasn't here to assist the bumbling American cops in their investigation. The news that somebody had stolen Harry's body had hit him like a blow to the stomach. It had taken him a full hour of restrained fretting before he had brought up the courage to inform Merlin.

"Do you believe this to be connected to the massacre, or an isolated incident?"

"We are investigating both, but concentrating on the former," Tully replied.

Translate to: We have no idea.

"The bodies that went missing were those of the preacher, a couple that had travelled to the event at the Church from out of state, a local man named Luke McKinley, and another man we haven't been able to identify yet."

_Harry._

"I would like to see the coroner's report, please. As well as anything you have on the disappearance of those bodies. Do you have a theory?"

Tully frowned. "Several. Look, everyone around here knew that those folks were a bit... odd. There's nothing to say against going to church regularly and saying your prayers, and whatnot, but they were taking it one step too far. There were several complaints from local folks about members of the Church harassing them about their lifestyle, and about rather aggressive evangelizing.  They were big on conspiracy theories, and refused to cooperate with local law enforcement. So I'm thinking they probably didn't want us to have their dead, and don't trust us to investigate what happened in a manner that they find acceptable."

"So you are concentrating on surviving members of the Church?" Alistair clarified.

Tully nodded. "Yes. But we can't neglect other lines of investigation. There were two cases of bodies being stolen from a morgue in a neighboring county last year. The investigation is still ongoing, but there is strong evidence suggesting they were sold for parts. There's a lot of money in that sort of thing, apparently, if you know the right people. Disgusting, but some people will do anything for money."

"This is going to sound a bit odd," Alistair warned, "but are you _absolutely_ certain they were all dead? There have been cases of people waking up at the morgue before."

_And usually, there was magic involved in those._  But he couldn't very well ask Tully if he suspected foul play from arcane sources.

Tully gave him a funny look. "We may be local law enforcement, and not up to date on all the fancy tech you have in Washington, but we aren't idiots," he said, his voice notably cooler.

Alistair held up a hand. "I wasn't suggesting that. I'm merely trying to eliminate the impossible."

A knock on the door announced Tully's deputy, who handed him several folders. "Here are the documents you asked for."

Alistair took them with a gracious nod and opened the first one. It was a report from the first responders to the scene of the massacre. He flipped through it; there was nothing in there he hadn't watched through Harry's glasses. The second file contained a list of all identified victims and any information known about them, and at the very end _Unidentified male, approx. 40 years old, dark hair, 5'11, dressed in a custom tailored suit, gunshot wound to the head, no other visible injuries, no ID, no identifying marks._

Harry would have been flattered to learn that they had miscalculated his age by about a decade.

"That guy," Tully said, tapping the paper with a finger, "he looked out of place."

_He was._

"Did the gunshot wound kill him?" Alistair asked, fighting to keep his voice calm and steady.

"The coroner did not have time to perform a post mortem before the bodies were taken. But a bullet straight to the head usually works that way."

-

"Unless you are exceptionally lucky, not fully human, or reanimated by a necromancer," Tristan said in a tone of voice too light and cheerful for the topic at hand, when Alistair recounted his conversation with Charles Tully. He had arrived unannounced and unexpected, and notably without Bedivere, which was slightly suspicious. Arthur had always liked to send them out in tandem, and Merlin had seemed to agree with him... up until now.

"Is _that_ why Merlin sent you to join me?" Alistair asked, perplexed. "Harry was human. We all knew him, and somebody would have noticed it if he had been anything else. Merlin, or you, or even Irvin with his weird sense of smell. I think we can rule out luck, sadly, because Harry was quite dead when his body arrived at the morgue. Does Merlin honestly believe in necromancy? I've never heard of it outside of stories."

Tristan gave a soft sigh and walked across the room to the window, opening it and letting in the warm air of the evening.

"Merlin," he said in a somewhat dejected voice, "would believe in anything that allowed him to cling to the hope that Harry wasn't gone."

"But necromancy..." It sounded so fanciful. And quite unlike Merlin, to veer so far off track.

"I'm here to help you investigate," Tristan said. "Come to think of it, we probably could have used Irvin's sense of smell, too, but somebody has to keep watch over Merlin. He's not at his most stable right now."

"What, and you delegated that task to your better half?" Alistair asked, faintly amused. Outside of missions, Tristan usually stuck to Merlin like a burr to a dog's coat.

"He wasn't too happy," Tristan admitted.

 

* * *

 

Harry lingered with Merlin for a while after Tristan had left, but soon found that it was not only pointless, but also painful to watch his best friend crumple into his chair in a sort of grieving stupor. No amount of noise or commotion on Harry's part roused him. In fact, Merlin gave absolutely no indication of noticing his presence.

It was extremely frustrating. Of all tortures Hell could devise, being helpless was the one Harry feared the most.

He decided to follow Tristan instead, who - unsurprisingly - went straight to his husband, soulmate and side-kick, Irvin, alias Bedivere. Harry had supported Bedivere during the trials, against Merlin's better judgment. That didn't happen too often (or ever, if Harry was truthful). He was fond of the younger knight, not least because he was the only force in the world capable of reigning Tristan in, and he mostly used that power for good. (Not _always._ There was, after all, a reason Tristan had fallen for him.)

"Somebody took Harry's body and Merlin wants me to go to Kentucky to help Percy investigate," Tristan said, striding up to Bedivere's desk.

The other man looked up, frowning. "Somebody _took Harry's body_?" He asked, apparently incredulous. "That's... horrible. Why?"

Tristan gave a helpless shrug and sat down on the edge of the desk.

After a moment of consideration, Bedivere added: "On a scale of one to 'homicidal rage', how upset is Merlin?"

"Very," Tristan said. "Not quite homicidal yet, I think, but I wouldn't trust him with weapons of mass destruction right now."

Bedivere snorted. "Merlin himself is a weapon of mass destruction. That's why I asked. In case you've forgotten, I'm the one assigned to keep everybody sane and you three wizards and Kay from blowing up the world." His dark eyes narrowed suspiciously. "That's why Merlin isn't going to Kentucky, right? He's afraid of losing control."

"Merlin never loses control," Tristan protested, defending his mentor.

"Nobody ever murdered Harry before," Bedivere pointed out. "There are limits to everybody's sanity, and I believe Merlin has just reached his. Which is probably why you're here. This is a warning, right?"

He looked at Tristan expectantly.

Tristan fidgeted. "I'm here to see _you_ and let you know where I'm going."

"And...?"

Tristan gave a sigh. "Oh, all right, you win. And to warn you, and ask you to take care of Merlin."

"You want _me_ to take care of Merlin." Bedivere said flatly, and it was not a question. "Of the most powerful wizard in Britain, who most certainly would argue that he doesn't need anybody to take care of him, even if he was on his last breath. I rank about level with one of the dogs in Merlin's estimation, you know, a pet that you keep around and pat on the head on occasion." He held up a hand, because Tristan was about to protest again. "Wait. I'm not saying I mind that. All things considered, it's not a bad position to be in." He shrugged. "It could be worse, really. Sometimes, I'm still amazed that Merlin has deigned to share his prize pupil with me. He's surprisingly un-possessive, and that's a rare trait in a wizard."

Tristan pouted. "Will you let me say something?"

"Could I stop you?" Bedivere asked with a lop-sided smile.

"Okay, first: Merlin likes you a lot more than he lets on. Second: He called me to his study and gave me his blessing, expressis verbis, plus the old _'if you hurt him, you answer to me'_ speech that I should have gotten from Pellinore. And it's a lot more scary when it comes from somebody who could actually make good on his threat and then some, let me tell you. So whatever misgivings you may have, he certainly doesn't share them." He drew in a deep breath. "And, speaking of scary, I'm actually scared. You're right, Merlin is not exactly at his most sane and composed right now. He's trying not to let it show, but the seams are fraying. He'll need to grief for Harry and let go sooner or later, and it's not going to be pretty. He needs a friend to stand by him right now. If it can't be me or Alistair, it has to be you."

"I don't deal with emotional outbursts any better than Alistair," Bedivere cautioned.

That much was true, Harry thought, and Alistair usually behaved like a man with a severe toothache if someone so much as mentioned deep feelings in his presence. Still - having somebody by his side was better than having nobody, and despite his occasionally awkwardness, Irvin was a committed and loyal friend.

_It should be me,_ a voice inside him protested. Merlin had always been his to hassle, cheer up, and care for.

"You've been dealing with _me_ these past few years, and doing just fine," Tristan argued with a small smile.

Bedivere frowned at him. "That's different. I love you."

"Can't you love Merlin a little bit?" Tristan asked entreatingly.

The look he got in response was priceless.

" _Merlin_ ," Bedivere said, voice dry enough to soak up a small lake, " _really_?"

"Come on. You like him."

"Not quite the way you do, I believe." Bedivere raised his brows at him.

Tristan shrugged. "You knew that from the start, love. We agreed that Merlin doesn't count, remember? Well, as far as I'm concerned, that goes both ways. I promise not to get jealous." He winked, and Harry actually pitied Bedivere a bit. He was going to give in. Nobody resisted Tristan for long.

"Ha! That'd be something," Bedivere laughed as he seemed to consider the idea. "As ironic as it would be, no thanks. I don't intend to make this a three-way thing, I'm quite content to watch from the sidelines."

"I need you to do something for me, so I'm not calling you out on the awful lie that is," Tristan replied with a grin, a brief flash of brilliant teeth.

Bedivere made a disapproving sound, but he didn't argue the point, which was telling.

"So you want me to babysit Merlin, while you're on mission with Alistair. What am I supposed to do, hold his hand and bring him coffee?"

"Love," Tristan put a hand to Bedivere's face, gently turning it to catch his gaze. "Anything he needs," he said quietly.

Bedivere continued to look doubtful, but after a moment, he sighed. "The things you ask," he muttered, and Harry felt that the subtext of this conversation could have filled volumes. He wondered if Merlin had any idea of how deep Tristan's devotion to him ran. It wasn't just the attraction, that was at the surface, and in the grand scheme of things - and considering Tristan's approach to sex - it didn't really matter much.

"I know," Tristan said, like an echo to Harry's thoughts. He leaned in closer to kiss his husband, and Bedivere sighed. He had lost this argument years ago, and he knew it.

 

* * *

 

"Let me get this straight," Alistair said to Tristan, "you told Irvin to keep watch over Merlin, and pretty much _ordered_ him to see to his every need, which I can only presume would include sexual favors, and he agreed to it? That's..." He shook his head, incredulous and unable to finish his sentence for lack of a suitable adjective.

"You wouldn't understand," Tristan said.

"No, that much is certain." Was there anything else but to keep shaking his head? "The things you people do..."

"Come on, you're pretty much living with Roxy. Surely that should give you a bit of an insight...?"

"I don't pretend to understand her, either, but at least I can tell myself that it's because she's not human."

Tristan snorted. "She is more human than a lot of humans I know. You did a good job raising her. No, don't argue with that. I know her parents didn't have much to do with it - either set of them, actually."

Alistair shrugged. The conversation was making him vaguely uneasy, because he knew that the next thing out of Tristan's mouth was going to be something wildly inappropriate.

Wait for it...

"She's the one, isn't she?"

Alistair blinked. Huh. That was... not exactly what he had expected.

"Ah... could you maybe explain that in a way that's understandable to supernaturally challenged people like me, Tristan?"

Tristan grinned. " _Supernaturally challenged_ , I like that. It's just that since I've known you - and goodness, it's been more than a decade now - I always felt like you were somehow... not all there. Like you were waiting for something, in a way? - I'm not saying this very well, am I? Something that Irvin said to me once... that before he found his sealskin and his other nature, he knew that something was missing, but he didn't know what it was. That's it. That's how it felt with you. Like something was missing. And with Roxy, too, come to think of it... but then, she was a troubled teenager.

Now, though... it seems that the pieces have fallen into place. Everything fits."

Alistair stared at him. "How could you possibly know _that_?" He had barely even admitted it to himself, much less to Roxy. It seemed an impossible thing for Tristan to simply guess at, and guess right. Or maybe it wasn't guessing. Maybe it was magic. The kind of magic that didn't rely on spells and symbols and tedious practice, but came from deep within.

Tristan looked almost embarrassed. "I just do. It's one of those things that refuse to be explained."

And you just had to accept them. That was Alistair's main problem with magic. It too often demanded acceptance that was almost akin to blind faith. In order to understand magic, you had to stop questioning it. You had to _believe_. And in order to work magic effectively and effortlessly, you had to stop thinking about it. Paradoxically, the way to becoming a truly powerful magician appeared to be to stop wanting to be a powerful magician.

Hence, Roxy's extremely successful unconscious magic. It was like a very effective form of sleepwalking, the kind that let you train for a marathon in your sleep.

Actually... here was a thought - "How badly would Merlin have to believe in Harry not being dead for him not to be dead?"

Anybody else would have told him that he did not make any sense. Tristan simply said: "Merlin does not have that kind of power. He _is_ human, after all."

Scary thought, that, but he had to ask: "Could Roxy...?"

"I don't think so. If it were you... who knows. But she hardly knew Harry."

Alistair nodded. Fair enough.

"It was just a thought. So Harry's body probably didn't disappear because somebody willed him to be alive. What possibilities does that leave?"

"Necromancy, organ harvesting, revenge, a mix-up at the morgue..." Tristan ticked them off on his fingers.

Alistair shook his head. "I asked to see all the bodies. I like revenge as a motive. Somebody from the church, looking to avenge his friends and family."

"There's only one problem with that neat little theory," Tristan said. "There were no survivors and no witnesses except Merlin, Eggsy, Valentine and Gazelle. I do believe we can safely say that none of them could have done it.

"Spoilsport," Alistair complained. "If so, what do we do now?"

Tristan grinned at him, flashing brilliantly white teeth. It looked more than a bit feral. "Let's go hunting."

* * *

 

It was amazing how neat and tidy Harry's house was. The world had fallen into a disarrayed chaos on the brink of apocalypse, and yet the house was slumbering away peacefully as if under a spell, not a thing out of place, not a speck of dust to be seen, not one of the framed butterflies shifted in its frame.

It was oddly comforting, because it gave the appearance that Harry had never left, had just stepped outside for a moment and would return momentarily. Harry was a neat-freak if Merlin had ever met one, and a firm believer in the idea that a man's home should reflect his personality. Part of it was practicality, part of it pride, but most of it was simply his upbringing.

Merlin had never met Mrs. Hart, but over the years of their acquaintance he had developed a quiet admiration for Harry's mother. Aside from drilling into her son the elaborate, if slightly old-fashioned manners that made him so uniquely suited to _Kingsman_ (despite being the son of a widowed housekeeper), her education had included a rigorous training in all household chores and tasks, from dusting bookshelves to preparing a five-course meal. She had also taught him to sew, iron his shirts to flawless perfection, keep all his personal belongings neat and in their appropriate order, and to honor hard working folk, the Queen, and God, in exactly that order.

If Mrs. Hart. had held any hope for the future of her son, it would have been that Harry would become a butler in a respectable and affluent household. He became a knight instead. What Mrs. Hart would have made of that, nobody ever knew or guessed; she had died while Harry was still in the army. Merlin liked to imagine that she would have been well pleased with her son's career.

She certainly would have approved of his solitary lifestyle. "My mother," Harry had once told Merlin, "believed that marriage was for the weak, the weary, and the meek. Or so she told me. I assume her own short brush with it didn't really impress her, nor did the fact that my father forced himself on his female employees while his wife pretended not to notice." At the time Harry's casual mention that he had been born of what could essentially be considered rape had shocked Merlin into stunned silence. And Harry? Harry had looked at him, shaking his head. "I keep forgetting that you all grew up so sheltered. If anything, your parents would have taught you to turn a blind eye to such occurrences as well."

It was easy to forget that Harry was in any way different from the other knights, because he fit so perfectly into their brotherhood. _Kingsmen_ usually came from money, and if not from money, at least from families with proud old names. A history of military service was regarded favorably, but the service wasn't too picky as long as a candidate presented the appropriate credentials. Harry' arrival had changed that in subtle ways and had ultimately paved the way for candidates who did not fit the traditional _Kingsman_ mould. Which, in the end, had led to Eggsy Unwin inheriting his mentor's seat at the table.

Harry Hart, breaker of chains, vanquisher of the class system and the old boy's network. He would have enjoyed that.

"Merlin...? You have been staring at those butterflies for a solid ten minutes."

Bedivere's gentle reprimand roused Merlin from his musings. The other knight's presence was an irksome intrusion, but there was simply no polite way of getting rid of him, and Merlin suspected that if he tried to get rid of him impolitely, he would bring the full force of the brotherhood's combined concern upon himself.

They worried about him, that much was clear. Bedivere was an unlikely watchdog, but with both Tristan and Percival out of the country, they had probably settled on him for lack of other options. Lancelot and Eggsy were too young and inexperienced, Pellinore and Gawain were abroad, Kay was not considered responsible enough, and Dagonet wisely disapproved of meddling in the affairs of other men, particularly wizards.

"You don't have to do this, you know," Merlin told the younger man.

Bedivere inclined his head in the barest of nods. "Neither do you."

Yes, I do, Merlin thought. I owe that much to Harry. Somebody has to sort out his affairs, and take care of his estate, and it had better be me.

It was the last thing he could do for his friend, the final act of loyalty, and it felt like too little.

He moved through the rooms, each in the same perfect state of tranquil equilibrium. Not a thing out of place, except one. Merlin wished for some disorder, some ordinary chaos in the material world to reflect the chaos his mind had spun into after watching Harry die.

He ran his fingertips along doorframes and windowsills. One after the other, the magical protections wrought into them and anchored in the very foundations of the house flared up briefly. Here, too, everything was in order.

"That's an awful lot of powerful magic," Bedivere noted, sneezing.

"Honeysuckle?" Merlin guessed, alluding to his odd sense of smell.

Bedivere shook his head. "No, that is just the _fae_. Yours is more bland. Like breathing in a cloud of flour, inside a bakery."

"That's not very flattering, now is it?"

"Maybe with a hint of cinnamon," Bedivere conceded.

"I will not even try to puzzle that apart."

"Probably better." Bedivere held his hand above the windowsill, not quite touching. He seemed fascinated. "Did you do that for all of us? All of our homes?"

Merlin nodded. "And the manor house and shop. My predecessor was a bit lax towards the end. I renewed them all when I took his place. To be fair, though, Tristan did most of the work at your place, I merely corrected." He looked up. "I will not have one of my knights attacked in their own home."

"You should move Eggsy into this house, then. It would save you a lot of work."

It was a pragmatic solution, but the thought of Eggsy in this house... Merlin wasn't certain which one of them would hate it more. Eggsy and he shared a sorrow now; they had both watched Harry die.

"We'll see."

"Who is Harry's legal heir?" Bedivere asked when they stepped into the study.

Merlin shrugged. " _Kingsman_. Harry never married and has no children. We don't consider any but immediate family members... not that he had any family to speak of."

"His family was _Kingsman_ ," Bedivere said softly.

"In a way, yes." It was that way for many of them. Most in fact. While many knights maintained loose contact with their birth families, the secrecy and the intensity of their missions inevitably took their toll on those relationships. In earlier days, it had not be uncommon for a knight to bring in a younger family member as a recruit, a nephew or even a son, but as of right now, Lancelot and Bedivere were the only second generation knights, and technically neither of them was blood related to their sponsor.

Merlin couldn't even have said when he had last spoken to any member of his family. His parents were both deceased and he had no siblings. All that remained was extended family, and they weren't close. He monitored them from afar, hoping that the magic that ran in his family might crop up somewhere among the younger generation, but that was the full extent of his interest.

"Do you regret it?" Bedivere asked. "Not having a family?"

I have a family, Merlin thought. They are unusual in every sense of the word, but they are mine. Mine to protect and cherish and hold on to. And someone has just taken one of them from me. The most precious one. The one I...

... but no, he would not go there. It was too painful.

He shook his head.

"I do, sometimes," Bedivere confessed.

Merlin looked at him quizzically. The admission surprised him. "You are married," he stated. To Tristan, no less, who burned with a fire brighter than the sun's and somehow seemed to complement Bedivere perfectly. Magical creatures, both of them. Not quite of this world, but somehow firmly settled into it.

Bedivere squirmed. "Children," he said shortly. "I... think about that sometimes. But there's no question of it. Aside from the obvious reproductive barrier, can you imagine trying to raise a child with Tristan, while both of us are _Kingsman_ knights?"

"No," Merlin admitted, and for good measure added: "And please do me a favor and promise me that you won't try. I lose enough sleep over the thought of having to tell Kay's children that I got their father killed. That, and the idea of a mini Tristan terrifies me."

Why was he even having this conversation with Bedivere? It seemed inappropriate, not least because Merlin wasn't fool enough to believe Bedivere to be ignorant of the complexities of his relationship with Tristan.

To his surprise, Bedivere smiled. "I married him for a reason, Merlin. To echo your own words, I actually love Tristan the way he is."

He had said that to Roxy, hadn't he?

"That's comforting to hear. Still, I don't think this world of humans is ready for a half- _selkie_ , quarter _fae_ child with Tristan's temper and - God-forbid - his magic."

Bedivere shrugged. "As it is, it's pure speculation in any case. Modern reproductive medicine can do some astonishing things, but it hasn't yet been able to eliminate biological mothers from the equation."

"I've learned never to assume anything when it comes to the _fae_ ," Merlin said carefully, but Bedivere shook his head. "Not that I know of. And that is not a conversation I want to have with Tristan, or with my mother-in-law."

"Understandable," Merlin muttered. As awkward conversations went, it probably even beat the one he had had to have with Pellinore about free will and human rights. Or _selkie_ rights, to be more precise. In any case, _Kingsman_ didn't approve of enslavement, even if it was born out of love. Pellinore had insisted that he wanted what was best for his family. His family disagreed. So did Merlin.

Merlin remembered a much younger Bedivere, clutching his dark sealskin, wide-eyed and afraid. And Tristan, drunk on magic and trembling with anger. Harry had been there, too. Level-headed, as always.

"He pushed hard for you to get into _Kingsman_ ," Merlin said, remembering. "Harry, I mean. I was surprised at the time. He had never done that before, and he never did again. Not even with Lee Unwin, and Lee was ever his favorite. Maybe he saw something I didn't at the time... I was just angry at Pellinore for landing me with yet another problem. You were a distraction. Too me, to Tristan, to Pellinore. But Harry insisted. And Tristan and Alistair backed him... I did suspect Tristan of selfish reasons, but I could hardly accuse the other two of the same."

"So I have Harry to thank for my seat at the table," Bedivere mused.

"In more than one way. If Harry hadn't opened the doors for outsiders, quite a few of you wouldn't have seats at the table. You. Roxy. Eggsy."

Bedivere nodded. "Harry believed in judging people on merit, not circumstances." He looked up at the newspaper clippings, hung in neat rows that echoed the butterfly display. Merlin followed his gaze. He had never quite figured out whether the framed pages were trophies - a sign of vanity - or a reminder to stay humble. Yet another one of Harry's little mysteries. There were a lot, and not even Merlin, who considered himself Harry's secret keeper, was privy to them all.

"His papers should be in the safe."

"You know the combination?" Bedivere asked, clearly surprised.

"I'm a wizard, don't be absurd. Harry never gave me the combination, because he knew I wouldn't need it. He simply told me what's in the safe, in case it was ever needed. It's mostly a formality. He has two accounts, one with a British and one with a Swiss bank. There's the deed to this house, some gold - also with the Swiss bank, I believe. Knowing Harry, his last will is probably a mixture of funeral arrangements and witticisms." Merlin brushed his fingertips over the wooden outer casing of the safe.

"And that's it, then? Funeral arrangements and Paperwork? That doesn't seem right."

It isn't, Merlin thought. But what would you have me do? This was the only thing he had a right to, the management of Harry's affairs. A friend's duty. Anything beyond that... well, that had only been in Merlin's mind, and if all the unspoken things would haunt him now for years to come, it was his own fault.

"There is no _right_ way to say goodbye to a friend," he said softly.

He was aware of Bedivere watching him intently. He didn't need to look up, he could feel the gaze.

"Tristan was afraid you'd do something... dramatic."

"The word you are actually looking for is _stupid_ ," Merlin said drily. "And Tristan worries too much. I'll be fine."

Bedivere shrugged. "In time, maybe. But aside from Harry's death being a terrible loss, the timing is rather unfortunate. You just finished training your apprentice, even if you haven't bothered telling him yet. That means, you are theoretically ready to retire, or leave, or whatever it is _Kingsman_ wizards do at the end of their careers. You've made yourself redundant. Now, Tristan hasn't realized that yet, which is why I am here and he is on a mission. If he knew, he wouldn't let you out of his sight."

Merlin's head jerked up and he stared at Bedivere, who looked unimpressed. Tell me I'm wrong, his eyes challenged.

Trouble is, you aren't.

"What makes you say that?" When did you grow so clever? Always the quiet ones...

"You've assigned Tristan a student. If he's ready to teach, that means his own apprenticeship is over. Tristan is your replacement, and one day, Roxy will be his. The line continues." Bedivere gave a shrug. "For what it's worth; I don't think that necessarily makes you suicidal. But maybe slightly more prone to taking unnecessary risks. And as somebody who has a vested interest in Tristan's continued sanity and emotional wellbeing, I'd really rather you stuck around for a while longer."  His lips curved into a slightly ironic smile. "Who knows? We could make you Arthur. Wouldn't that be fun?"

"Kill me now," Merlin muttered. But he was quite impressed with Bedivere, and it probably showed on his face. "Do us both a favor and keep Tristan in the dark for a little while longer. It wouldn't benefit either of us if he decided to become my shadow."

 Bedivere shrugged. "If it suits you. But he  _will_ figure it out sooner or later."

"Most likely," Merlin agreed, "but not yet."

And he needed some time to sort out his thoughts and feelings. To get a grip one himself, because right now, everything seemed to be slipping away in different directions.

He carefully removed the leather folder he had known he would find from the safe. No need to open it, he knew what was in there.

_Funeral arrangements and paperwork. -_ _Irvin is right, that cannot be all, can it?_

_But what if it is? Could I live with that?_

After a moment's hesitation, he closed the safe and tucked the folder under his arm.

"We should probably water the plants before we leave," he said aloud.

Bedivere stared at him. "Water the..." He shook his head. "Okay, why not. I guess they are  _Kingsman_ property now, aren't they? And who knows, Harry's ghost might be watching and might care about what happens to his fiddle leaf fig."

But he helped Merlin to find a suitable jug and dutifully assisted in the watering of seven house plants and a pot of sunflowers and geraniums. Merlin approved and quietly congratulated Tristan once again to his choice of a husband.  _Whatever happens, you'll be fine with Irvin around._ It was a comforting thought.

When they left the house, and after carefully shutting and locking the door, possibly for the last time, Merlin asked: "Does Tristan smell any different to you than the rest of the _fae_?"

Bedivere turned halfway to look at him. "Well, if you must know, there's a touch of spices. Cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg."

Cinnamon, Merlin thought, fighting the absurd urge to laugh. Of course.


End file.
